3. February 2012

Tectonics Music Festival

 

Tectonics Music Festival

March 1. - 3. 2012
The Iceland Symphony Orchestra proudly presents the launch of Tectonics, a three-day festival of contemporary music curated by the ISO's Music Director, Ilan Volkov.

This March, Reykjavik's Harpa Concert Hall comes to life with 17 concerts and events featuring more than 150 musicians, composers and amateurs. The festival will present different genres of music, classical and electronic music, improvisation, noise and many more. The festival expands to Harpa's four halls and its foyer, with some of the works especially written for the location.

The program will feature an exciting selection of works by John Cage (in commemoration of the composer's centenary), Morton Feldman, Christian Wolff, Alvin Lucier, Benedict Mason as well as premiers of new works by Frank Denyer, commissioned by ISO and BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and music by a number of young Icelandic composers. A whole day will be devoted to the Icelandic composer Magnús Blöndal, a truly original voice, who was one of the pioneers of modernism in Iceland in the 1950s and 60s.

Featured guest performers at the festival are British pianist and improviser John Tilbury and instrumentalist Oren Ambarchi. John Tilbury performs, amongst other works, the Concerto for piano and chamber orchestra by Cage which is a colourful piece from the early stages of the composer's career.

A unique collaboration between Volkov and Ambarchi will see the world premiere of their work for electric guitar and orchestra.

Many Icelandic musicians, including Auxpan, Slowblow, Stilluppsteypa, Kira Kira, Kristín Anna Valtýrsdóttir and Reptilicus, pianists Davíð Þór Jónsson and Tinna Þorsteinsdóttir and composers collective S.L.Á.T.U.R. are performing solo or with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra.
Artist Ragnar Kjartansson, who recently received the Malcolm McLaren Award in New York, will perform a solo vocal piece by John Cage.

Ilan Volkov has collaborated with many composers and has been praised for his contributions in the field. Tectonics will be an annual event on the international music festival scene. In 2013 Volkov will curate Tectonics in Reykjavík with Iceland Symphony and in Glasgow with BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra.