nordic affect

An interview with Nordic Affect’s artistic director, Halla Steinunn Stefánsdóttir is featured in the latest issue of the Swedish early music magazine Tidig Musik. The magazine is as usual filled with lots of other goodies so if you have some Swedish skills we warmly recommend getting a hold of a copy!

We’re just a few days away from heading into studio to record works for our new album but also busy planning the future. Among next winter’s activity is a premiere of a new work by the talented composer and electronic artist Úlfur Hansson. He first caught our ears a few years back with an album which he released under the artist name Klive. Since then a lot has happened, compositional studies aside he’s toured the world with Jónsi, released his album White Mountain and received an innovation prize for the creation of an electromagnetic harp. We’ve already recorded some material for Úlfur in connection with a stage production at The National Theater of Iceland and judging from that initial collaboration this promises to be an inspiring experience. Premiere is scheduled for the beginning of 2014!

Nordic Affect just received a grant from Musica Nova to commission a work from Valgeir Sigurðsson! Exciting news indeed as we’ve been dreaming about collaborating with this wonderful artist who’s the founder of the record label and collective Bedroom Community! The work is scheduled to make its world premiere in 2014 so let the countdown begin! In the meantime we recommend that you check out Valgeir’s work as well as the sound world of his fellow artists at Bedroom Community, ranging from Nico Muhly and Daníel Bjarnason to Ben Frost!

This summer NoA will appear at Skálholt Summer Concerts. We’ll be joined by wonderful artists such as Tuomo Suni and Leo Chadburn who is also known as Simon Bookish. Ian Wilson will also make his way to Skálholt and will, in addition to performing Handel and some rarely heard Purcell with us, give a recorder masterclass. Ian is not only an outstanding performer but also head of Woodwind at Eton College, the principal recorder professor at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama and is a visiting recorder specialist at the North East of Scotland Music School in his hometown of Aberdeen. The masterclass will take place on the 26th of July and details and mail adress for further enquiries can be found by clicking here. 

We’ve started recording and preparing for a fun collaboration which will receive premiere this fall. At the event we’ll team up with amiina’s María Huld Markan Sigfúsdóttir, composer Hugi Guðmundsson and sound and visual artist Kippi Kaninus in a project, which combines sound and visuals. We’re very excited about this collaboration and will for sure post more info about it shortly, so stay tuned!

Till then, happy music greetings!

We’re busy preparing for our next concert, on the 17th of April. The event is a part of our concert series at The Culture House in Reykjavík and this time we’re heading back to school as we’ll explore music education in the baroque era. So get ready for castrati, schools and bossy parents, all combined with the wonderful music of Cima, Locatelli, J.S.Bach, Geminiani, C.P.E.Bach and Hotteterre. Concert starts at 20.00!

It doesn’t get much better than this: Nordic Affect is nominated for this year’s Nordic Council Music Prize! We are very honoured and of course over the moon with joy! The great company we’re in makes it even better as the list of other nominees counts some of our favorite Nordic artists so if you’re looking for some musical inspiration we encourage you to check out the prize’s website musikpris.org Happy happy greetings from Reykjavík!

One of the best news we’ve got in a while is that our Abel recording was nominated for an Iceland Music Award in the categories “Best classical cd of the year” and “Best sound production of the year”. We’re thrilled on this latest turn in our Abel adventure and of course send the biggest congratulations to Georg Magnússon, our recording wiz and sound engineer on his nomination. The ceremony will take place on the 20th of February and will be sent out on TV so everyone in Iceland should be able to participate in this harvest fest of the musical life in Iceland in 2012.

We hope you enjoyed our performance of Bodinus, Telemann, Corelli and Leclair on the The Icelandic National Broadcasting Service on the 24th of December! If you missed it there’s already an opportunity to hear us again on the Radio’s website, this time however with some exciting Icelandic contemporary music. The broadcast consists of a recording from our concert at Dark Music Days in Reykjavík on the 2nd of February. The program included Kortamel created in a brand new computer software by Guðmundur Steinn Gunnarsson, Preludes by Hróðmar Ingi Sigurbjörnsson, a premiere of INNI – musica da camera by Þuríður Jónsdóttir, Couleur Neige by Sophie Dufeutrelle and a premiere of Shades of Silence by Anna Thorvaldsdóttir. We had a blast performing in front of a packed hall in Kaldalón in Harpa and hope you’ll enjoy the recording which you can find by clicking here. And it’s available online for a month!

Adele may be performing the Bond theme song this year but an excerpt from Apocrypha by Hugi Gudmundsson, performed by Nordic Affect was chosen as the new theme song for Opus, aka THE contemporary music program on Icelandic Radio 1! We think it doesn’t get much cooler and urge you to check out the program which broadcasts a cool selection of contemporary music every Monday night.