Lögberg-Heimskringla - 24.01.1997, Side 1

Inside this week:
neimsKringia
The lcelandic Weekly
Lögberg Stofnað 14. januar 1888 Heimskringla Stofnaö 9. september 1886
Letters...................................2
Byrdye Beckel awarded Manitoba’s
highest honour........................3
Festive Season Highights from Gimli......4
Children’s Corner: Karl og kerling, part 2 .6
Paul Melsted Clemens — The first
lcelandic Architect?..................7
111 Argangur Föstudagur 24, januar 1997 Numer 2
111 th Year Publications Mail Registration No. 1667 Friday, 24 January, 1997 Number 2
I C E L A N D I C
N E W S
The city’s biggest
investment since
1986
■ The new Iceland Seafood plant in
Newport News, Virginia will create
225 new jobs when it begins operation
in August/September, 1997. Thedaily
Virginian Pilot recently reports that the
investment in Iceland Seafood is the
largest in the city since the Canon Co.
opened in 1986. The investment
amounts to $19 million. Howell
Carper, the company’s manager, is
reported to have said that their
customers’ needs have changed, which
prompted this large undertaking on
behalf of the company. About 100
employees will move from the Camp
Hill location and an additional 125
Iocal employees will be hired. The
paper also reports that freight cost will
be cut by $600 by using the Hampton
Road harbour nearby.
I feit I couid fiy...
■ Sophia Hansen, an Icelandic
woman, has struggled to regain
custody of her two daughters in the
Turkish courts. The girls, Dagbjört and
Rúna, are Icelandic bom and have
Icelandic citizenship. Sophia gained
custody of the girls in Iceland, but the
father, Halim Al, received visiting
rights. However, after their first visit
in Turkey, he failed to retum the girls
to their mother. Ólafur Egilsson,
Iceland’s Ambassador to Turkey, has
arranged meetings between mother
and daughters. On December 29, the
first such meeting in four and a half
years took place at a police station in
Istanbul.
Continued on page 6
Nína-Margrét Grímsdóttir (centre) at the reception following her recital with ICCT
Honourable Members Sigga (Johannson) Moore (left) and Erla (Palmason) Macaulay.
Icelandic pianist
performs in Toronto
By Gail Einarson-McCleery
with excerpts from a review by
Ariadna Stebelsky
The Icelandic Canadian Club of
Toronto was privileged to present
a recital by Nína-Margrét Gríms-
dóttir on Sunday, November 17. It proved
an enchanting experience for both
Icelanders and enthusiastic intemational
music lovers in the audience.
Nína-Margrét is an Icelandic pianist
currently residing in New York. As a re-
sult of her studies in Londom and New
York, she holds an M.A. Degree in music
performance from City University of
London, an LG.S.M. performance
diplomafrom Guildhall School of Music
and Drama in London, and a professional
studies diploma from Mannes College of
Music in New York.
She has performed at many venues
in London, Reykjavík and North
America, including appearances as soloist
with the City University of London
Chamber Ensemble, the Icelandic Sym-
phony Orchestra and the Rockefeller
Centre Summer Concert series among
many others. Lögberg readers may
remember her from her appearance at the
Icelandic Connection Conference in Red
Deer, Alberta in October of 1995.
For her recital in Toronto, she chose
some very difficult pieces by three diverse
composers, two of them well-known to
most (Mozart and Mendelssohn) and a
BLAST OFF!
After many years of waiting,
Bjami Tryggvason will realize
his dream of space travel next
summer. He is scheduled for take off
aboard the U.S. space shuttle Discovery
on July 17,1997. As apayload specialist,
Photo hy: Erit Einarson-McCleery.
third, a young composer from Iceland,
Jónas Tómasson, who was introduced
with his Sonata VIII, composed in 1973.
This was a real “discovery” and a very
exciting one for Torontonians.
Like Tómasson, Nína-Margrét is a
graduate of the Reykjavík College of
Music; she presently works on her
doctorate degree at the City University
of New York. Her doctoral work has
included a paper on Tómasson published
in Icelandic Piano Music (Akureyri,
Iceland, 1992), where she writes,
“Tómason is a prolific composer but his
music is far from conventional. Its flow
Continued on page 4
he will conduct a number of experiments
on fluid dynamics, material science and
fine tune the Microgravity Isolation
Mount (MIM), which he designed. The
MIM will define the effects of vibrations
on experiments conducted on the
Intemational Space Station. The Micro-
gravity Isolation Mount is a special plat-
form for mounting experiments, designed
to decrease the amount of vibrations
affecting experiments performed in space.
A prototype has been on the Russian
space station Mir for the past six months.
Bjami is very proud of being Ice-
landic, and has said that this will provide
an opportunity for the members of the
Icelandic community to observe the
launch. □
-from The Icelandic Canadian Club of
British Columbia Newsletter