Performers & composers

Reykjavik Chamber Orchestra

At the beginning of the 1970s a group of young musicians returned to Iceland after studies abroad to play in the Iceland Symphony Orchestra and to teach at the Reykjavík College of Music.
These young musicians felt the need for the challenge posed by regular concert activities, in which at the same time they could give the Icelandic audiences more frequent opportunities to hear concert performances of chamber music from the Baroque to our own day.
This was the background for the formation of the Reykjavík Chamber Orchestra by twelve musicians in 1974 under the leadership of the violinist Rut Ingólfsdóttir.
After thirty years of activity it must be said that this dual goal has largely been met.
The orchestra performs in groups from three to 35 members depending on the specific concert projects, and they move effortlessly among the periods mentioned.
On the one hand they received the Icelandic Music Award in 2004 for their recording of J.S. Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos and on the other hand they have given Icelandic premieres of many modern classics by composers like Schoenberg, Messiaen, Walton, Stockhausen, Lutoslawski, Gubaidulina and Boulez. In addition they have worked on individual composer concerts with works by Pärt, Górecki and Jón Leifs.
Many Icelandic and Nordic composers have written works for the orchestra – works that they have performed on tour in Europe, works that they have performed on tour in Europe, and which the orchestra has documented for a good ten years now on an impressive series of CDs.
Among the orchestra’s notable performances abroad are those at EXPO 1998 in Lisbon, EXPO 2000 in Hanover and on journeys to China and Japan.
The ensemble has worked with several important conductors including Paul Zukofsky, Reinhard Goebel and Vladimir Ashkenazy.