I am very excited about the release of In the Light of Air which will be out in August released by Sono Luminus, performed by The International Contemporary Ensemble. The album also includes Transitions, for solo cello.
The cover photo is taken by Hrafn
I am incredibly honored and grateful to be named The New York Philharmonic's Kravis Emerging Composer. Writing for orchestra and large ensembles constitutes in such a fundamental way who I am as a composer - what a wonderful privilege to be working with them in this way.
Here is a link to their announcement:
http://nyphil.org/whats-new/2015/june/anna-thorvaldsdottir-kravis-emerging-composer
The music is *here* now!
I have been working on the music, narrative and ideology for the chamber opera for a very, very long time and it is an absolutely great feeling to have the music ‘ready’ in my mind and spirit now – this is always a very special time for me in the process of composing each work, when the dots have been connected and the gaps have been filled – I am currently in the process of finishing writing the notation out and will be editing the music in the coming months – but the music is "here" and it is a great feeling to have its resonance in my spirit.
The music is currently finding its way from the hand-written pages to the software...
There will be an hour and ten minutes of music and I am extremely excited to have the music come to life this fall through all the wonderful performers and to see how it will find its way to the stage in collaboration with director Thorleifur Orn Arnarson and stage designer Anna Rún Tryggvadottir!
The work will be premiered at Theatre Trier in September, followed by performances at Ultima Oslo and other places. It is very exiting to have the amazing cast determined, which are the following: Melis Jaatinen mezzo soprano, Sofia Jernberg singer, Joa Helgesson baritone, Miké Thomsen actor, Tinna Thorsteinsdottir pianist and Bit20 Ensemble. The CAPUT Ensemble is also involved. The work is commissioned and produced by Far North.
For my parts it seems like 2015 will be the year of the opera. I am currently working on a project commissioned and produced by the Far North Cultural Network. The project is a chamber opera which will be premiered in Theater Trier in Germany in September 2015, and will be featured in other places following the premiere, e.g. at the Ultima Oslo Contemporary Music Festival in Norway, and at Dark Music Days in Reykjavik, Iceland in early 2016.
Working title UR__
The work features 3 voices, 1 actor, grand piano and an ensemble of 12 performers. Without wanting to say too much while the work is still in progress, here is a small - admittedly abstract - window into it: The music invites an intimate setting and the subject is centered around an ambiguous and atmospheric narrative, spoken through sequences of musical imagery where language merges with music in sound and expression. Language becomes an instrument where elements of various languages are dispersed and recombined, generating a strained and fragmented idiolect. In the work, “characters” and “roles” merge but are two different things.
The opera will be directed by Thorleifur Orn Arnarsson and Anna Rún Tryggvadóttir will be doing the stage design. I am very much looking forward to our work together. The narrative is constructed by Anna Thorvaldsdottir and the text is a combination of words and phonetic textures by Anna Thorvaldsdottir and Mette Karlsvik.
Needless to say I am very excited to meet and work with all the amazing people who will be a part of the project. We have our first workshop together coming up in the last week of January, which will conclude with an open workshop at the Dark Music Days Festival at Harpa in Reykjavik on January 31st - everyone is welcome to attend!
2014 was filled with beautiful musical adventures and I am very excited to welcome 2015 with new and continuing projects and collaborations. I will soon write about some of the upcoming projects, but first I wanted to share some thoughts from the end of 2014.
Releasing Aerial through Deutsche Grammophon / Universal Music Classics was truly a great adventure and I am so happy and thankful for the warm reception the album has received. We have gathered press for the album here.
Also wanted to share a video feature that Sinfini Music did in November. Kate Molleson visited me here in Reykjavik, Iceland, and we had a great day of conversations and tea, walking in nature and at Harpa Concert Hall. Marteinn Thorsson was the film director.
Warm wishes into the new year,
Anna
Very happy and thankful that Aerial is now out on Deutsche Grammophon / Universal Music Classics.
The works are performed by the Iceland Symphony Orchestra, the Caput Ensemble, Duo Harpverk, Nordic Affect, members of the Iceland Symphony Orchestra, Tinna Thorsteinsdottir & Anna Thorvaldsdottir. The recordings were made in Reykjavik at Sundlaugin Studios, Guðríðarkirkja by Georg Magnússon, Greenhouse Studios, and in Harpa Concert Hall by Studio Sýrland. Saga Sig took the cover photo and Armann Agnarsson did the cover design.
I am very grateful to be nominated in three categories at the Icelandic Music Awards, for example for Aerial which is nominated as 'Album of the Year'.
I am so grateful and happy that my upcoming album has found its home at Deutsche Grammophon / Universal Music Classics.
The album will be released in November and features a selection of works from the last few years, among them Aeriality for orchestra. The performers on the album are CAPUT Ensemble, Nordic Affect, Iceland Symphony Orchestra, members from the ISO, Duo Harpverk, Tinna Thorsteinsdottir and Anna Thorvaldsdottir.
Warmest thanks to Collin J. Rae who played an absolutely fundamental part in making this happen and to UMC and DGG for welcoming the music.
And thanks to Kraumur Music Fund for helping me get started on the project.
Aequilibria, for chamber orchestra, will be premiered by BIT20 Ensemble in Bergen on September 14th, conducted by Baldur Brönnimann. The work was written for BIT20 and is inspired by various states of balancing forces - by looking at the sky - the natural breath between expansion and contraction, and the perspectives of translucence and opacity.
I had such a wonderful time in NYC with ICE last week when we gave a concert at the Lincoln Center's Mostly Mozart Festival at the Park Avenue Armory. The pieces on the program were, Shades of Silence, into - Second Self, & In the Light of Air. It was so great to work with ICE as always, and the staff at the Armory was amazing. I am also very thankful for the number of writings about the concert that followed - here are some quotes and links, and some pics from the event as well.
Photo © Richard Termine
New York Times
"Ms. Thorvaldsdottir’s music has a natural beauty to it in the way it reveals itself patiently, and in its unpredictable but organic-seeming instances of rhythmic quickening." Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim
Photo © Richard Termine
New York Classical Review
"On Tuesday evening in the Park Avenue Armory’s Board of Officers Room, the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) played an all-Thorvaldsdottir program as part of the Mostly Mozart festival, and it was one of the most involving and affecting concerts in several years... The concert, augmented by her recent recording Rhízoma (Innova), left a strong impression that Thorvaldsdottir has a notable compositional voice: her unique ability to manipulate her material so that the passage of time is made beautiful." George Grella
Photo © Richard Termine
Classical Voice North America
"Here is a composer with a distinctive sound world, and the ability to choose, from a wide textural palette, the most apt instrumental effect for a given moment. Yet, unlike some who toil in the au courant genre of the soundscape, she also knows how to build and sustain tension and convey emotion while evoking the vast sweep of the ages." Barbara Jepson
Photo © Richard Termine
Feast of Music
"Thorvaldsdottir’s music itself was overwhelmingly beautiful and huge in scope. Her slow tempos draw easy comparisons to the vast sonic landscapes of John Luther Adams, and the constantly evolving cadential figures bring to mind the dense polyphony of Béla Bartók's string quartets, with their scratched notes and bows across the bridge." Robert Leeper
It has now been two and a half years since my debut portrait album - Rhízōma - was released through Innova Recordings. Innova focuses on release of primarily US-based contemporary music in a variety of genres and is a great label to check out for exciting new music from that part of the world - their catalogue has a great variety of music by living composers and contemporary music performers. Here is a link to their website.
I am deeply thankful for having had my debut album released with them, they are extremely professional and efficient and their model is very reasonable for this genre in music.
Thanks again for all your work Philip, Chris, Steve, and ACF.
