Dark Music Days

The Iceland Symphony's concerts at the Dark Music Days festival are highly anticipated events for all enthusiasts of Icelandic and international contemporary music. As the opening event of this year's festival, this concert features recent and notable works from Iceland and Brazil. The opening piece is Balaena by Ingibjörg Ýr Skarphéðinsdóttir, who has in recent years established herself as one of the most interesting composers of her generation in Iceland, graduating from the Iceland Academy of the Arts in 2016. Performed here in a new arrangement for full symphony orchestra, Balaena was premiered by the Reykjavik Chamber Orchestra at the Dark Music Days in 2023, where it garnered great attention.

Marcos Balter is one of Brazil's most exciting contemporary composers. His piece Orun from 2022 draws inspiration from the religious life and contemplative traditions of the Yoruba people in West Africa. The work evokes a meditative atmosphere and utilizes the orchestra's delicate nuances to the fullest. It was premiered by the New World Symphony Orchestra in Florida under the direction of Matthias Pintscher in the autumn of 2022 and received tremendous acclaim.

The concert concludes with the Icelandic premiere of Páll Ragnar Pálsson's bassoon concerto. Páll Ragnar has been at the forefront of new, Icelandic music for years. The piece was premiered by the Estonian bassoon virtuoso Martin Kuuskmann with the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra conducted by Olari Elts in 2022. Páll Ragnar's connections to Estonia run deep, as he pursued composition studies there, completing his doctoral degree in 2014. In this piece, Páll draws material from Kuuskmann's life and their shared fascination with the nature and culture of Estonia.

The concert is about an hour long, with no intermission.