Sinfóníuhljómsveit Norðurlands

Organ concerto part of SN January concert

09. desember 2008 - Read more

On 25 January at 16:00, the North Iceland Symphony Orchestra will hold a concert in Akureyri Church. The programme comprises Concerto for Organ and Orchestra by Marco Enrico Bossi (1861-1925) and Symphony no. 4 by Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827).

Organist, Eyþór Ingi Jónsson  

Conductor, Guðmundur Óli Gunnarsson   

Advance bookings at the Penninn bookshop, Hafnarstræti, Akureyri

Price: Advance, kr. 1,500

At box office on day of concert, kr. 2,000

Age 20 and under, free

Dísella and Jóhann Smári perform at the SN Advent Festival.

06. november 2008 - Read more

The North Iceland Symphony Orchestra Advent Festival will be held in the Akureyri Sports Stadium, Saturday 6^th December, at 18:00.

Three soloists and the Akureyri Women´s Choir will join the orchestra for this occasion.

Vocal soloists: Dísella Lárusdóttur and Jóhann Smári Sævarsson

Soloist on trumpet: Vilhjálmur Ingi Sigurðarson

Conductor: Guðmundur Óli Gunnarsson

Ticket sales at: Penninn Eymundsson, Hafnarstræti, Akureyri and the Þór community centre, Hamar, by Skarshlíð.

Price: ISK 2,500.-

The Iceland Symphony Orchestra

28. oktober 2008 - Read more

The Iceland Symphony Orchestra will hold a concert in the Síðuskóli Sports Stadium, Tuesday 4 November. The concert will commence at 20:00.

Admission has been decided at a very reasonable 1,000 kr. To ensure purchase of a ticket for this concert, please visit the orchestra’s website at www.sinfonia.is

Mozart Concert in Glerá Church

29. september 2008 - Read more

The concert held by the North Iceland Symphony Orchestra on 19 October will be a true Mozart festival. On the programme are two symphonies by Mozart and also a concerto for horn and orchestra. Mozart composed his first symphony when he was 8 years old and the concert will commence with that work; Symphony No. 1 in E flat major.  Next comes the Concerto for Horn and Orchestra No. 2 in E flat major. The programme ends with Symphony No. 29 in A major.

Soloist on horn, Ella Vala Ármannsdóttir. Conductor, Guðmundur Óli Gunnarsson. 

Ella Vala Ármannsdóttir was born in Svarfaðardalur in 1980. She began studying horn in the Dalvík Music School under the tuition of Eiríkur Stephensen, after which she continued her studies at the Akureyri Music School, her teacher there being Sveinn Sigurbjörnsson. From 1997 until 2003, she studied with Joseph Ognibene at the Reykjavík Music School, where she graduated as a soloist and wind instrument teacher. Ella Vala was a student at the Musikhochschule Freiburg im Breisgau from 2003 until 2006, graduating with a diploma, 1^st class. At present she is engaged in further studies at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis in Swizerland; instrument, natural horn.

Ella Vala is a founding member of the Ísafold Chamber Orchestra and has been a free lance member of the Iceland Symphony Orchestra since 1999. She has also played in the orchestra of the Icelandic Opera, the North Iceland Symphony Orchestra, Orkester Norden and Freiburger Barocksolisten.

Soldier’s Tale told on 30th August during Akureyri Arts Festival

28. july 2008 - Read more

The North Iceland Symphony Orchestra together with the Akureyri Drama Society organise a concertduring the Akureyri Arts Festival. This concert will be held on 30th August at Marína, Strandgata 53 and will commence at 17:00.

Admission free.

This year, Soldier’s Tale by Igor Stravinsky will be performed. This work concerns Joseph, a soldier who is travelling home to spend his leave.

He stops to rest a little on the way, takes his fiddle in his hand and starts to play. Enter the Devil, in the guise of an old man. This personage offers to buy the instrument from Joseph, but Joseph refuses. So, unwilling to give up, the Devil produces a book that he says will bring the soldier endless prosperity; a valuable gift indeed, worth much more than a cheap fiddle. Finally, the Tempter manages to persuade Joseph of this and they make the exchange. However, Joseph soon realises that his newfound wealth brings him no happiness at all and he longs to be, once again, the poor soldier that he had been before.

The first performance of Soldier’s Tale was in Switzerland at the end of WWI and is a satire on greed and the miserly accumulation of wealth.

It is a work written for the theatre, with a small orchestra, three actors and a ballerina. In this production, however, there is only one narrator who plays a dual role as the soldier and his Tempter, the Devil.

The narrator is Aðalsteinn Bergdal and the conductor of the North Iceland Symphony Orchestra is Guðmundur Óli Gunnarsson.

End of the season

23. june 2008 - Read more

The North Iceland Symphony Orchestra has now completed its 15th season. The next season will commence with a concert on 30th August, during the Akureyri Arts Festival. Details will be given at a later date.

Carmina Burana at the Mývatn Choral Festival

26. may 2008 - Read more

On Sunday 8 June, at 15:00, the North Iceland Symphony Orchestra will hold a concert in Reykjahlíð Sports Stadium, Mývatn. On the programme is Carmina Burana by Carl Orff.
Carmina Burana is a collection of mediaeval poems which the Austrian composer Carl Orff set to music. They sing of love and beauty, jollity and joy in richly colourful orchestral robes. For this concert the North Iceland Symphony Orchestra will be joined by a choir of 250 and the soloists, Sigrún Hjálmtýsdóttir, Bergþór Pálsson and Einar Clausen.

Conductor, Guðmundur Óli Gunnarsson.

Hafnarfjörður Centenary

24. april 2008 - Read more

On 1 June Hafnaðfjörður will celebrate its centenary as a chartered municipality. A concert in honour of this event will be held in Haukahús, Hafnarfjörður, at 17:00. For this occasion, musicians from the North Iceland Symphony Orchestra and the Hafnarfjörður Chamber Ensemble will join forces under the baton of conductor Guðmundur Óli Gunnarsson. Soloist on flute; Ármann Helgason; vocal soloists, Elín Ósk Óskarsdóttir, Eyjólfur Eyjólfsson and Ágúst Ólafsson. Four choirs from Hafnarfjörður will also perform at the concert.

Joint concert by the Akureyri Music School and the North Iceland Symphony Orchestra

27. mars 2008 - Read more

Let the trumpets sound!

On Sunday, 20 April, the Akureyri Music School and the North Iceland Symphony Orchestra will hold a joint concert in the Glerá School Sports Stadium. The concert commences at 16:00. Soloist on trumpet is Vilhjálmur Ingi Sigurðarson, who is at present completing his master's degree at the Sibelius Academy, Helsinki.

The North Icelandic Symphony Orchestra and the Akureyri Music School have always enjoyed a friendly working relationship. For many years students of the music school have taken part in the orchestra’s concert to celebrate Advent and for the past three years the SN has dedicated one concert every year as a joint endeavour between the two establishments.

Students of the Akureyri Music School take part in the performance and soloists are chosen from the many musicians who are former students of the school.

In the concert on 20 April, 30 members of the orchestra will be students currently studying at the Akureyri Music School.

On this occasion, we will hear a diversified musical programme comprising, for example: Joseph Haydn’s Trumpet Concerto; Sabre Dance by Aram Khachaturian; selections from the Carmen suites by Georges Bizet and Igor Stravinsky's Pulcinella Suite.

Vilhjálmur Ingi Sigurðarson

27. mars 2008 - Read more

Vilhjálmur Ingi Sigurðarson was born in Akureyri in1980 and was brought up in the Eyjafjarðarsveit district. He studied trumpet, first at the Eyjafjörður Music School and later, until the year 2000, at the Akureyri Music School. Vilhjálmur completed his wind instrument and soloist´s examinations with his graduation from the Reykjavík Music School in the spring of 2003, his main teacher there being Ásgeir Hermann Steingrímssson. That same year Vilhjálmur began further studies at the Oslo Music Academy where his teacher was Professor Jan Frederik Christiansen, who holds the position of 1st trumpet with the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra.Vilhjálmur graduated from there in 2005 with the degree of Cand magister. He is now studying for his master´s degree at the Sibelius Academy, Helsinki under the tuition of Professor Jouko Harjanne and Touko Lundell. He will graduate this spring. Besides his studies, Vilhjálmur has played in the Finnish Opera in Helsinki, the Academy´s Symphony Orchestra, the Opera orchestra in Espoo and various other chamber ensembles. He has played in many orchestras and chamber groups both in Iceland and abroad, among others the Iceland Symphony orchestra and the North Iceland Symphony Orchestra. He is a permanent member of the Ísafold Chamber Ensemble which recently received the the Icelandic Music Award in the section "classical and contemporary music".

Tchaikovsky and Dvorák

26. february 2008 - Read more

20. March.2008

On 20 March, Maundy Thursday, Elfa Rún Kristinsdóttir will be the solo violinist at the orchestra's performance of Antonin Dvorák's violin concerto. Also on the programme will be Symphony no. 4 by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. Conductor, Guðmundur Óli Gunnarsson

Advance bookings can be made now at Penninn bookshop, Hafnarstræti
Ticket price advance booking  kr. 1.500
Ticket price at venue on day of concert  kr. 2000

Elfa Rún Kristinsdóttir, solo violinst; concert 20 March 2008

24. february 2008 - Read more

Elfa Rún Kristinsdóttir, violinist, was born in Akureyri in 1985. She began studying violin at the age of four, under the tuition of her mother, Lilja Hjaltadóttir. Later she studied with Guðný Guðmundsdóttir. Elfa Rún graduated from the Freiburg Music Academy, Germany in February 2007, with the highest grade. Her teacher was Prof. Rainer Kussmaul.  Elfa Rún has participated in many courses, one of which was at the Lucerne Festival Academy in Switzerland where Pierre Boulez was the principal conductor. She has also atttended concert master classes with, for example, Zahkar Bron, Antje Weithaas and the Artemis Kvartettnum.  Elfa Rún has appeared as soloist with the Icelandic Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Chamber Orchestra, Tokyo and the Akademisches Orchester, Freiburg, Germany.

She is a permanent musician with the Ísafold Chamber Orchestra, Camerata Drammatica and Solistenensemble Kaleidoskop in Berlín and has also played in many other orchestras, among which are the Balthasar Neumann Ensemble and other chamber groups in Germany. She has a special interest in the performance of Baroque music and has, in recent years, worked with Trevor Pinnock and Thomas Helngelbrock.  Elfa Rún was awarded first prize in the Johann Sebastian Bach music competition in Leipzig, 2006. She was chosen as “Most Likely to Succeed” at the Icelandic Music Awards in 2006 and also won the Award of Encouragement presented by the European Cultural Fund, Pro Europa, in 2006.

Bjarte Engeset and Áshildur Haraldsdóttir

12. desember 2007 - Read more

Concert on Sunday, 3 February at 16:00 in Glerá Church. On the programme will be: Works by Johan Halvorsen and Harald Sæverud, flute concert by J. Ibert and Symphony no. 6 by L. Van Beethoven. Soloist on flute: Áshildur Haralddsdóttir. Guest conductor: Bjarte Engeset

Advance bookings can now be made at the Penninn bookshop, Hafnarstræti, Akureyri.

Ticket price if booked in advance, kr. 1.500 or kr. 2.000 at the venue on the day of the concert.

The girl in the tower

02. desember 2007 - Read more

The North Iceland Symphony Orchestra has published a CD. On the disc is Snorri Sigfús Birgisson's work "The Girl in the Tower", based on the fairy tale of the same name by Jónas Hallgrímsson. The SN commissioned this work which was performed at the series of concerts held in elementary schools in 2005.

It is a tale of the battle between good and evil; the message is classic and very clear - good will prevail over evil if only we be sufficiently steadfast in our belief and trust. The music follows the story as it is narrated. The CD was recorded in the Laugarborg concert venue in January 2006. This is a highly professional recording and Jónas Hallgrímsson's story is printed in its entirety with illustrations by the artist Veronica Nahmias. Veronica lives in Holland and is well known there for her illustrated children's books. Also in the booklet is an essay

"Jónas and the Owls"

by Páll Valsson.

The disc is published by Steinabær and can be purchased in the Penninn bookshops, 12 tónar record shop, and the Iceland Music Information Centre.

Concert, Garðar Thór Cortes

26. november 2007 - Read more

Advent Festival Concert, Garðar Thor Cortes

The North Iceland Symphony Orchestra's Concert to celebrate the Festival of Advent will be held in the Akureyri Sports Stadium, Saturday 8^th December 2007 at 18:00. This concert is in cooperation with the Þór Sports Club. Soloist at this performance will be Garðar Thor Cortes. The vocal group Sálubót will also sing with the orchestra. On the programme will be a selection of music to celebrate the Festivals of Christmas and Advent.

Conductor:  Guðmundur Óli Gunnarsson.

Soloist on violin: Lára Sóley Jóhannsdóttir

Tickets are on sale at the Penninn bookshop, Hafnarstræti, Akureyri

Price: ISK 5,000