Reykjavík Grapevine - 05.06.2015, Page 45

RESTAURANT- BAR
6.990 kr.
Vesturgata 3B | 101 Reykjavík | Tel: 551 2344 | www.tapas.is
Taste the best
of Iceland ...
... in one amazing meal
ICELANDIC GOURMET FEAST
Starts with a shot of the infamous
Icelandic spirit Brennívín
Followed by 7 delicious tapas
Smoked puffin with blueberry “brennivín” sauce
Icelandic sea-trout with peppers-salsa
Lobster tails baked in garlic
Pan-fried line caught blue ling
with lobster-sauce
Grilled Icelandic lamb Samfaina
Minke Whale with cranberry & malt-sauce
And for dessert
White chocolate "Skyr" mousse with passion
fruit coulis
late night dining
Our kitchen is open
until 23:30 on weekdays
and 01:00 on weekends
Amtmannsstíg 1 • 101 Reykjavík • +354 561 3303 • www.torfan.is
experience
classical cuisine
school and breath-
ing life into the local
music scene. He and
his family moved to
Drangsnes after re-
ceiving a sign dur-
ing an Easter break
in Árneshreppur, the
remote municipality
north of Drangsnes,
where his wife Birna
grew up.
“We had been
stuck in the same
track in Reykjavík
for a while,” Björn
says. “We stopped
here on the way to
Árneshreppur and visited some friends
and they told us that there were vacant
principal and teacher positions here
and asked if we would apply. We didn’t
think so, but when we continued on
north the day after, we talked about it
the whole time. Then we went to a bin-
go at Finnbogastaðaskóli [the elemen-
tary school in Árneshreppur] and won
a 10,000 ISK credit slip at the store in
Drangsnes and we agreed it was a sign
that we should apply. Three months
later we had moved to Drangsnes.”
Björn, who is a music teacher by
profession, went from a school in Reyk-
javík with 400 students to a school
with 15. “It’s like a little family, every-
one is always together and you can
have a much more personal connection
to the students,” he says, noting though
that it’s also a lot of work, because he’s
teaching all age levels and must be well
versed in all their curricula.
He emphasises independence and
personal service to his students. “I
want to help them come up with their
own ideas and help them realise them,
rather than just feed them material. I
can do that with either twenty kids or
five, but the quality of the service I pro-
vide is better when they are so few. It’s
perfectly individualised.”
Taking full advantage of his chosen
profession, Björn has been turning his
students into talented musicians and
he says it wasn’t difficult at all. “They
are awesome. Most of them are genu-
inely interested in music and it’s not
much effort to teach them to keep the
beat or learn new melodies.”
Those kids came under the spot-
light in 2013 when they participated
in a highly successful and award-win-
ning Christmas commercial campaign
produced by Vodafone. Being a music
teacher, Björn was called to a meeting
to discuss the idea of finding children
who played instruments, and he natu-
rally brought up his students. The com-
mercial shows a group of kids on stage,
performing a Christmas song for their
families (who record it on smartphones
and view it through iPads).
“It was so much
fun,” Björn recalls,
“everybody in the vil-
lage became involved
in the project, deco-
rating their houses
three weeks earlier
than usual. They were
so positive and so into
it. I think that shone
through, this positivity
and honesty and spon-
taneous joy.”
The people’s posi-
tivity also extends to
Björn’s attempts to
create a music scene
in the small town. He
founded the monthly concert series
Mölin in co-operation with the local
bar/restaurant/guesthouse, where he
gets different musicians to play each
time and warms up for them himself.
I voice my doubts about middle-
aged countryside people being inter-
ested in this sort of hipster music, but
Björn tells me they are very open to
it. “Some people come to every con-
cert and I think it’s out of real interest
and not just duty and co-dependence.
There have been about 25-60 people in
the audience. In a town with a popula-
tion of 70, that’s pretty good. Almost a
100% attendance.”
He also hosts a larger family-friend-
ly summer version of the concert,
called Sumarmölin, which is slowly
building a good reputation. The line-up
for this year’s Sumarmölin is pretty im-
pressive, including fairly big names in
the national music scene, like Tilbury,
sóley and Retro Stefson. Kveld-Úlfur is
also playing along with the big shots, a
band made up of Björn’s older local el-
ementary students.
But after three years, Björn is now
moving back to the city. He recently
had his third child, and although he
likes bringing up his children in such a
safe environment, he and his wife are
missing their families and friends, most
of who live in the capital.
He still plans to continue with the
summer concerts, however, so this
small fishing village could still become
known for a hipster music festival.
Tickets are available at the en-
trance and on presale at https://
tix.is/is/event/711/sumarmolin/
OUTSIDE
REYKJAVÍK JUNE 5-18
Sumarmölin
Sumarmölin takes place
on June 13 at the commu-
nity centre in Drangsnes,
Samkomuhúsið Baldur. The
house opens at 19:00 and the
concert starts at 19:30.
Full Line-Up:
Retro Stefson
Ylja
sóley
Berndsen
Tilbury
Borko
Kveld-Úlfur