LSC audition

I have an audition with the London Symphony Chorus this thursday, March 1st. I´ve decided to sing the old time favorite "Amarilli, mia bella", an italian aria. The reason for this pick is that I used to sing it back in my old Vocal Arts Academy in Reykjavík (http://songskolinn.is).

I have it from the inside that they are short on basses, wich is rare, and very suitible for me. This May they will tour to Brussels and Paris so I´m very anxious to join.

Dance structure charts

Last night Jonathan Larsson and Jason Andersson premiered "Become, a duet" at Guildhallschool, and they did a great job.

It´s always a weird experience for me to hear my music premiered when I´ve been living with it and moulding it for such a long time, in this case: approx. 3 months. It must be the closest I´ll be to an out-of-body-experience. All of a sudden you are on the outside, gazing in, as a member of the audience. I usually zone out while the performance takes place and cant remember everything until I hear the recording afterwards. Strange? ... maybe. Composers have been known to be quite eeccentric.

Now I´m working on my music for the collaboration with coreographer Andrew Bennett. I´ve made a rough structure to get me going, and as an excuse for being lazy this evening when I should had been writing a Treble Recorder solo, I made 3 charts to visually demonstrate this structure.

Behold, at the top you´ll see one of these famous charts.

Best wishes / Bestu kveðjur
Helgi

A sonic postcard

Last tuesday my group, group 2, finished our sonic postcard assignment and presented it for the other groups. Fun process but it´s good to have it over with.

We, and then I meen myself, Irum Fazal (my poet) and our singers: Matthew Mcguigen and Claire Grace Candy, went to Soho and recorded about 30-40 min of random sounds and then I mixed it down into 2 min "postcard".

Other material we recorded separately at our homes and at Guildhall, School of music and Drama.

The main text comes from Völuspá, from the Icelandic Sagas, the poetic Edda.

Sé ég upp koma
öðru sinni
jörð úr ægi
iðjagræna.
Falla fossar,
flýgur örn yfir,
sá er á fjalli
fiska veiðir.

Sal sé ég standa
sólu fegri,
gulli þakinn
á Gimli.
Þar skulu dyggar
þjóðir byggja
og um alla daga
yndis njóta.
---
Now do I see | the earth anew
Rise all green | from the waves again;
The cataracts fall, | and the eagle flies,
And fish he catches | beneath the cliffs.

More fair than the sun, | a hall I see,
Roofed with gold, | on Gimle it stands;
There shall the righteous | rulers dwell,
And happiness ever | there shall they have.

If you are interested then here you´ll find a video from voicework´s introduction meeting in october last year (you can see me sitting there in the back... yay).

Radio performance

RÚV 1, Iceland´s oldest radio station played our recording from the Dark Musicdays concert the other day. We are very happy with that, and it almost makes up for the fact that no newspaper seems to have written a review or any kind of coverage what so ever. Sending out a formal invitation to news agents would be a good idea for next concert, dont you agree?

Here are the programme notes from RÚV 1´s programme.
http://www.ruv.is/frett/opus/elektra-a-myrkum

Branching out

Since the successful concert of the Composers Society and Elektra Ensemble (www.elektraensemble.com) in Harpa (www.harpa.is) at Dark Musicdays festival (www.myrkir.is) this January 28th I´ve been working very hard to put our new material online and in an accessible layout, with good help from Halldór Smárason, one of my co-composers.

Here is the final result, you can read about the group and the individuals and listen to the concert:

http://flavors.me/tonskaldafelag

Last monday I finished my newest piece "Become", a duet for viola and piano. It´s based on the piece you´ll find on the site earlier mentioned but I´ve expanded the material and developed the structure much further. The premiere will be Feb. 24th at Guildhall 7pm. Everyone welcome and no ticket prize.

Here are some of the influences:

Best wishes / Kær kveðja
-Helgi

Viola and piano

Dear London friends. On Feb. 24th my newest piece for Viola and piano will be premiered alongside 2 others at Guildhall, School of Music and Drama. The concert will take place in the main music hall at 7pm. Free entrance. I hope to see you there. Best wishes, Helgi.