Reykjavík Grapevine - des. 2021, Blaðsíða 11

Find today's events
in Iceland!
Download our free
listings app - APPENING
on the Apple and
Android stores
Metal Music Festival
Doomcember
December 3rd and 4th - Gaukurinn
- 6,990 ISK
The arrival of the darkest month
means that Doomcember is here
again! For the third time, Gaukurinn
brings together the best local and
foreign stoner/doom metal bands.
But this year the festival has been
expanded, and the concerts go
on for two whole days. The festival
caters for all tastes in slow & heavy
sounds, with performances from
bands such as Belzebong, Mars
Red Sky and Saver. A perfectly dark
event for slowdoom metalheads. RH
Christmas Movie Parties
Die Hard! Elf! And More!
During December - time depends on
the movie - Bíó Paradís - 1,690 ISK
Movie enthusiast, ahoy! Bíó Paradís
has come up with a perfect series
of events for you during the cold
winter nights. Throughout
December, the theater is playing
seasonal movie classics from ‘Home
Alone’ and ‘Love Actually’ to ‘It’s A
Wonderful Life’. Get yourself down
there for a few of these feelgood
flicks, best enjoyed with a bucket of
popcorn and a party soda (or
perhaps a stollen and some sherry).
RH
Holiday Haircuts For Free
Pop-up Hair Salon
December 10th - 17:00 - Nordic
House - free of charge
Need a haircut for Christmas? We’ve
got you covered! There’s just one
little thing you might want to know:
you’ll need to trust children with the
scissors. Theater and performance
project Kidarchy’s Bar is opening
a pop-up hair salon in the Nordic
House, offering free haircuts by
kids. Get ready to receive a creative
coiffure which will definitely
stand out from everyone else’s at
the Christmas dinner table. Well,
whatever happens you’ll have an
anecdote to tell. And the kids will
have had a great time! RH
Christmas In The
Stratosphere
Hekla Ma!núsdóttir and Lilja María Ásmundsdóttir take you to
an atmospheric extreme
Words: John Pearson Photos: Pola Maria and Hekla Magnúsdóttir
Seven days before Christmas, Reykjavík musi-
cian Hekla Magnúsdóttir will team up with
multimedia artist Lilja María Ásmundsdót-
tir to perform a groundbreaking concert at
Hannesarholt.
You may know Hekla as one of Iceland’s
foremost practitioners of the theremin, the
otherworldly-sounding electronic instrument
invented in the 1920s by a Russian physicist.
And Lilja María can list among her creative
achievements the design and construction of a
unique stringed instrument—the hulda—that
produces both sound and light, and which she
will play at the concert.
Hekla and Lilja María, who studied compo-
sition together at the Iceland Academy Of Arts,
will be presenting the premiere performance
of their new joint creation ‘Lofthjúpur’. “It’s
like the edge of the world, where space starts,
you know?” Helka says when asked about the
meaning of the name. “Kind of like where oxy-
gen stops.”
Denatured sounds
In addition to her hulda, Lilja María will be
playing prepared piano; one where the tone of
the strings has been deliberately denatured,
for example by resting screws on them, or
weaving wooden pegs between them. “And
the sounds that come out—these two unusual
sounds that you don't hear often—just mix
so beautifully with the theremin,” Helka en-
thuses. “It's like a very airy atmosphere.”
In addition to performing ‘Lofhjúpur,’
Hekla is also looking forward to playing some
theremin classics which were composed a cen-
tury or so ago. “We will be playing some of
the earliest written electronic music—like a
piece by Schillinger from 1929—and a piece
by Wilkens called ‘Dance In The Moon,’” she
says, harking back to a time when writing
conventional music for theremin was quite
routine for many composers.
A quirky curio
These days—at least, compared to a centu-
ry ago—the theremin is mainly viewed as a
quirky curio, tending to serve more experi-
mental types of music. However Hekla’s un-
conventional approach extends beyond her
choice of instrument and, despite being a for-
mally trained musician, she eschews standard
musical notation for her theremin composi-
tions. She has instead devised a system all
her own: a form of graphical notation which
makes sense to her, but could also be learned
by other players.
“When you're playing, you're kind of draw-
ing in the air,” Hekla explains, referring to
the fact that the player doesn’t actually touch
a theremin while playing it. “So I find it really
helpful while I'm scoring to just make an ab-
stract sketch of what it's going to sound like.”
Looking at Hekla’s notation, it’s easy to
visualise the graceful hand movements of the
player that the swoops and squiggles repre-
sent. And those swoops and squiggles are quite
beautiful on the page, a bonus not lost on their
creator who is selling colourful prints of the
notation online. “A great Christmas present
for a grandfather or aunt who is practicing the
theremin!” Hekla notes on her Facebook page.
Where space starts and oxygen
stops
Hekla and Lilja María intend to record ‘Lofthjú-
pur’ at some point, and release an extract from
it on seven-inch vinyl. To accompany that, they
also plan to print the score for the composi-
tion, each musician using their own unique
personal notation, and include that with the
record.
So get along to Hannesarholt and hop on the
sleigh to ‘Lofthjúpur’, “the edge of the world,
where space starts and oxygen stops”. And
have yourself a thereminy Christmas.
The concert takes place at Hannesarholt in Reyk-
javík on December 18th. Tickets are available
from tix.is
CULTURE
NEWS
Ghosts in the machines
Hekla's unique notation