Reykjavík Grapevine - 19.11.2018, Qupperneq 32

Music

The Sónar Reykjavík festival is
an annual breath—nay, lung-
ful—of fresh air for Icelandic
music lovers. Connecting the dots
between the thriving local scene and
the eclectic international royalty of the
electronic music scene, it’s something
to look forward to over the long winter.
The first lineup announcement for 2019
is stuffed with great news. Between
April 25th and 27th, Harpa will be puls-
ing with the sound of the pioneering
Richie Hawtin, the widescreen techno
of Jon Hopkins, UK rapper Little Simz,
and a host of local talents including
acronymic talents GDRN and JFDR,
seasoned veteran DJ Margeir, spectral
electronica trio aYia, and rising stars
SiGRÚN and Sólveig Matthildur. Tickets
are on sale now.

A host of Icelandic bands have an-
nounced new releases around the
Airwaves festival. The long-dormant
Benny Crespo’s Gang have announced
a new self-released album, “Minor
Mistakes,” available to pre-order now
on their website. Árstíðir, who released
an album earlier this year, will put out a
second in early November. “Garðurinn
Minn” is a collaboration with the
band’s “songwriting hero Magnús Þór
Sigmundsson,” and they successfully
crowdfunded the release via the Kar-
olína Fund. Rising Grapevine favourites
aYia will release their self-titled debut
via Bedroom Community on November
16th.
Well-known Icelandic music profes-
sional Anna Hildur has won the Tam-
pere Music Award in Finland, awarded
annually “to acknowledge a person,
organisation or movement that has
contributed extraordinarily to the
development of the music industry.”
Anna has worked for 20 years in mu-
sic, going from artist manager, to the
head of the Iceland Music agency, to
the head of NOMEX , a music industry
initiative formed between the Nordic
countries. Today, she is embarking
on a new chapter as the founder of
new Reykjavik and London based film
and TV company Tattarrattat. Well
done, Anna! Keep doing what you’re
doing. JR
MUSIC
NEWS
Code Of
Conduct
Daníel Bjarnason releases ‘Collider,’
talks conducting
Words: Rex Beckett Photos: Timothée Lambrecq

Album
Daníel Bjarnason’s new album
‘Collider’ comes out on October
26th on Bedroom Community.
“It’s a terribly strange job, to be hon-
est,” Daníel Bjarnason finally says,
after a long pause. He is staring
straight ahead, brow furrowed, in
deep contemplation. “I don’t think
people understand conductors very
well at all, especially in this country.
I wish they would.”
The fêted Icelandic composer and
conductor is on the cusp of releasing
‘Collider,’ his third album of commis-
sioned works and his first outright
solo album in five years, aside from
the soundtrack for ‘Under The Tree.’
The album is comprised of three
works originally commissioned for
American ensembles from 2011-2015,
and reinterpreted and recorded by
the Iceland Symphony Orchestra
(ISO) and Hamrahlíð Choir during
Daníel’s three-year stint as the ISO’s
artist in residency.
Mass communication
On this day, however, the conversa-
tion veers from his new album—a
piece commissioned by Bryce Dess-
ner for the Cincinnati MusicNOW
festival—to the physical and psy-
chological constitution of a good
conductor.
“There are so many different
things that go into being a good con-
ductor, and being a good conductor
is probably one of
the hardest jobs in
the world,” he says.
“You have to have an
amazing knowledge
of the music. You have to know the
instruments. You have to understand
composition. But you also have to get
people on your side, at least nowadays
because being a tyrant isn’t really an
option anymore. You need to be con-
vincing. You need to be able to com-
municate what you want to a large
group of people who have their own
opinion, and are expert musician
that have spent thousand of hours
honing their craft. And they have to
trust you. And then you also have to
be able to communicate with your
body, at least if you’re going to be a
good conductor.”
A vast organism
He acknowledges the rather opaque
and ephemeral nature of the work,
particularly from the audience’s per-
spective, as seemingly not relating
between physical movement and the
sounds produced. “Sometimes when
you watch it, it may look like the con-
ductor is doing this big thing and the
orchestra is not playing on his big
thing, but it’s the relationship be-
tween the written music on the page,
time and movement that they will
understand,” he says. “Sometimes
the conductor can dance and the or-
chestra can just play, but sometimes
the orchestra depends for its life on
what the conductor does. Very often.”
He admits that his fine tuning as
a conductor has now rendered him to
the point that he often can’t switch
off his working brain when listening
to music or watching an orchestra
and is somewhat always in research
mode.
“It’s just a joy of bringing some-
thing to life that you care about and
then hopefully other people will care
about as well,” he adds.
“Sometimes you have to
work hard and you have
to be demanding, of
course, but it all comes
from a place of excitement. An
orchestra is such a crazy thing. There
are so many possibilities. It’s such a
vast organism.”
gpv.is/music
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"Being a good conductor is probably one of the hardest jobs in the world."
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