Performers & composers

Atli Heimir Sveinsson

Atli Heimir Sveinsson was born in Reykjavík, Iceland 1938. He grew up in a musical family and was send to the Youth Music School of Dr. Heinz Edelstein and the age og 9. He took piano lessons. at Reykjavík College of Music where he studied with  Wilhelm Lanzky-Otto and Rögnvaldur Sigurjónsson and took his diplom in 1957. He also studied harmony with Dr. Róbert Abraham Ottóson. He studied at the Icelandic University in Reykjavík 1959-60 and took his degree: cand.philos,
He studied af Staatliche Hochschule für Musik in Cologna,  Germany, from 1959-1963
He studied composition with Günter Raphael ang Rudolf Petzold, instrumentation with Bernd Alois Zimmermann, conducting with Wolfgang von der Nahmer and piano with Hermann Pillney and Hans Otto Schmidt. He also took private lessons in composition with Gottfried Michael Koenig. Sveinson took his diploma in composition and theory in 1963. During this year he attented the summer  courses in Darmstadt, making aquaintance to Oliver Messiaen, Pierre Boulez, Györgi Ligety, Bruno Maderna,  a.o.
In 1964 he studied with Karlheinz Stockhausen at Kölner Kurse für neue Musik at Reiniscke Musikhochschule, among his teachers there were Henry Pousseur, Christof Caskel, Frederick Rzewsky. In 1965 he went to Holland and studied electronic music with Gottfried Michael Koenig in Bilthoven.
Sveinsson  has since lived in Iceland. He founded  class of composition at Reykjavík College of music. Among his students are Atli Ingólfsson, Haukur Tómasson, fiorsteinn Hauksson, Kjartan Ólafsson, Sveinn Lú›víg Björnsson and Helgi Pétursson.

He was free lance producer at Icelandic State Broadcasting Service producing very popular programs on musical history. Sveinsson was president of Icelandic Composers Assocation 1972-1983.

He organised the festival and General Assembly of International Socitety for Contemporary Music in Iceland in 1973. He was also president of the Nordic Composers Councel 1974-1976 and organised the Nordic Music Days in Reykjavík 1976. These events were turning point in in the musical live in Iceland, establishing closer links to Scandinavia, the Continent and USA.

In 1980 Sveinsson founded Dark Music Days, a festival for contemporary Icelandic music, that took first place biannually and later became a annual forum were Icelandic composers presented their latest works.
Sveinsson has lectured at many universities in Scandinavia, Europre and USA. In 2002 Sveinsson was a guest professor in musical composition and theory at the Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, USA.
In 2004 Sveinsson was appointed „composer in residence“ of the Icelandic Symphony Orchestra.
 
In 1976 Sveinsson was the first Icelander to be  awarded the Nordic Music Prize, given biannually by the five nordic countries Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Danemark and Finland, for his Flute Concerto
Since 1992 Sveinsson receives a livetime honorary salary from the Iclelandic Pariament.
Sveinsson was elected menber of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music in 1993.
 
Sveinsson has composed  following operas: The Damask drum for the National theatre in Reykjavík in 1980, and later performed in Venezuela on the Simon Bolivar Festival for theatre and drama; Vikivaki,1982 a television opera commissioned by the state broadcast television stadions in the Nordic countries and shown simultainously in Sweden, Finland, Nortway, Danemark and Iceland; My fathers country,  a musical for the Municipal theatre in Reykjavík which was performed 218 times, The moonlight island,  premiered in Bejing in 1996 and performed at the National theatre in Reykjavík.

His operas still to be premiered are the chamber opera Hertervig written on the libretto of the Noirwgian poet Paal-Helge Haugen and The Convertion, comissioned by the Icelandic Opera in Reykjavík.
 
Sveinsson has composed nine solo concertos and many orchestral pieces, chamber music, choral music and songs, Time and water , a ballet oratorio on the poem by Steinn Steinarr.

Among his chamber and orchestral music can be mentioned Iter mediae noctis comissioned by the Cathretal in Gothemburg, Sweden; Flower shower for orchestra and tape, comissioned by the Symphony Orchestra in Nörrköping, Sweden; Aria  and The country that does not exist commissioned by the Maros Ensamble in Stockholm; Plutot blanche q´azurée comissioned by the Danish Trio, Odense, Danemark; Trobar clus, a concerto for bassoon and orchestra comissioned by the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra, Icerapp (Rondo fantastico) comissioned by MW 1 in Warsaw and Icerapp 2000 commissioned by the Icelandic Symphony Orchestra anf performed 15 times on their tour in USA in 2001. Sign of fire (Piano concerto nr.2) written for Love Derwinger; and many orher. Also incidential music for theatre, a.o. Indepenant people by Halldór Laxness in 1999 for the National theatre.

Sveinssons works have been widely performed both in Europe and overseas. His music has been performed at many festival such as ISCM (in Reykjavík, Athens, Brussels) Nordic Music Days , Warsaw Autums a.o.
 
„Through his teachers Sveinsson became conversant with different types of Central European  culture- a little old-fashioned Jewish humanism from Günter Raphael, a dialectis view of history from Bernd Alois Zimmermann, and the post-war musical avant-gardism after Webern, as personified by Karlheinz Stockhausen and Gottfried Michael Koenig...
...As a composer Sveinsson is an expressive and at times provocative experimenter, not least as regards form. The means available at his disposal have gradually come to embrace a wide expressions and styles...
... But there is another important element, namely the yarning found in the sound texture, harmonies and melodies of the late romantics. Sveinsson attempts to embrace elements from other musical heritages especially from Japan, and other musical genres such as jazz and rock music....
...There is however the same plurality: openess, surprise, richness og image and fantasy are wighed against monotony, brutality, the sensetiveity of chamber music, burlesque, and real or parodied romantic expressiveness....
(Free after Göran Bergendal:New misic in Iceland)

Næturbón (Night Request)

Næturbón or Night request, for mixed choir and clarinet was  commissioned by the Nordic Music Days 2006. It was composed last July-August. It is based on Jón Leifs´s Requiem; some material of Requiem is used to Stefán Hörður Grímsson´s poem about the wind travelling softly over the moores, the forests of the oceans; sleepless spirits seeking rest and the ocean is  sleeping tonight, the stars illuminate the belly of the ocean…etc.

Allþingisrapp

Allþingisrapp was composed for the Fóstbræður male choir. I have composed many raps for many occations. I write a rap when I don´t have any musical ideas.
The Icelandic Parliament has a tradition of letting its members make verses in old style, socalled ferskeytlur or four shots. The verses are good and bad, seious and unserious,  sad and joyful and everything there in between. The verses used in this rapp are mostly new. Some MP´s helped me with finding what I needed.
I have written many such pieces. The first was written in 1980, before the rap was discovered for Zygmunt Krauze and his ensamble. It  was played at Warsaw Autumn Festival and on the festival of the International Society for Contemporary Music in Brussel.
I called these pieces  orginally rondo fantastico  which is  better title for the music, but the present title is better for the publicity.

The last rapp before the Parlamentarian Rapp was Eurorapp for youth choir and solo trombone, which was performed last summer in nine European „cultural capitals“ and Reykjavík, the capital of Iceland is one of them and Icerapp 2000 for the Icelandic Symphony Orchestra which played the piece on theit American tour.

My idea was to try to revive the spitit of the divertimento og the 18th century. That  is music that does not take itself or the world too seriously, but is there to entertain on an intellectual level. Also with some humour. Not that nasty humour of the 20th century, like that of Stravinsky and Picasso, but a good-heartedf humour with a faint smile caused by the fact that some times a tone can be heard nowadays as Adorno pointed out.

John Cage said: „Take it easy but take it“. He also said : „I have nothing to say and I say it“. The postmodenists say that no new creation is possible, only  the recycling of the old ones. 

When I have no ideas I can always compose rapp. I just start, steal from myself rather than others. But  I imitate others sometimes more or less precisely. This time there are quotations from Stravinsky, the Icelandic national composer Jón Leifs, Beethoven, Gershwin and possibly others without me knowing it.
 
The piece is based on the rythm  of the Icelandic rímur. It is irregular:
1234-123-1234-12 etc.I invent endlessly nonsense-melodies on this rythmic pattern. There is no form, no variation, but hopefully always something new to hear.
 
John Cage said:“ Happy new ears“