Atlantica - 01.01.2004, Qupperneq 14

Come ‘n’ See the Show
12 A T L A N T I C A
interview
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Leonard Cohen. Gipsy Kings. The Human League. These are just some
of the musical groups that have appeared at the Reykjavík Arts Festival
over the years. Not bad for a festival held in a capital of only 100,000.
Oh, yeah, before I forget, David Bowie and Led Zeppelin also per-
formed at the Festival. Maybe you’ve heard of them?
The international talent that’s passed through Reykjavík since the Arts
Festival began back in 1970 is staggering.
And these are just the pop & rock stars. The list of jazz musicians,
vocalists, classical musicians, theatre, dance and visual artists who
attended reads like an artist hall of fame.
So, the obvious question is: What secret pull does the Reykjavík Arts
Festival have on the world’s top talent?
“When an artist is deciding on whether to go to a festival, he or she
always looks to see who came before,” says the artistic director
Thórunn Sigurdardóttir. “When they see our list, they see that this is a
real festival.”
It’s been the forward thinking of the many prescient organisers of the
Reykjavík Arts Festival to court rising talent, artists who are just emerg-
ing and breaking on to the scene.
“We always try to look ahead and get an artist on their way up. When
we had Pavarotti (he performed in 1980), he didn’t even sell out. But
we knew he would be famous,” Thórunn says from her quaint office in
Reykjavík’s city centre.
From now on, the Arts Festival, which this year runs from 14 - 31 May,
will be held annually. So now the pressure to “get” the talent has
increased dramatically. But by the look of this year’s calendar, Thórunn
has delivered.
As far as pop music is concerned, the film Umbilical Chord, about the
Reykjavík music scene, will premiere at this year’s festival before a
screening at the Cannes Film Festival. One of the film’s producers is
Sigurjón Sighvatsson, whose productions have included such films as
K-19: The Widowmaker starring Harrison Ford.
“Some of the bands appearing in the film, like Quarashi and Apparat,
will be playing around the film’s premiere,” says Thórunn. “It will be a
great event for the young people.”
While there is a definite tilt towards young people, the Arts Festival
has something to suit everyone’s artistic interests. One of the world’s
most exciting dancers, Erna Ómarsdóttir, who also stars in Pierre
Coulibeuf’s latest film, Les Guerriers de la beaute (The Warriors of
THE REYKJAVÍK ARTS FESTIVAL, ONE OF NORTHERN EUROPE’S OLD-
EST AND MOST RESPECTED FESTIVALS, WILL NOW BE HELD ANNU-
ALLY. EDWARD WEINMAN SPEAKS TO THE ARTISTIC DIRECTOR,
THÓRUNN SIGURDARDÓTTIR.
Olgu Borodina, the Russian mezzo-soprano
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