Performers & composers

Úlfar Ingi Haraldsson

Úlfar Ingi Haraldsson started his musical education in Iceland but later continued his graduate studies in USA and in the year 2000 he finished his Ph.D degree from the University of California, San Diego.He has worked as a composer, contrabassist, teacher and conductor in Iceland and in California and has written works for orchestra, choir, chamber groups, and soloists which have been performed in Iceland, Europe and the Americas. Ulfar has participated in numerous musical events in Iceland and abroad both as a composer and performer and he has collaborated with musicians and artist from various fields. He currently works as a composer and teacher of composition and theory at the Iceland Academy of the Arts and the Reykjavik College of Music.

Shapes, Fragments and Refrains

The work is dedicated to The Reykjavik Wind Ensemble. The subject matter is twofold, first it concerns a particular reference to the human mind, meaning how it forms  ideas from fragments and shapes that act as seeds for a fully fleshed ideas or thorough understanding in the form of an abstract musical work. Second,  it concerns the tendency to acknowledge or accept the reference that any abstract idea might have to a reality as it currently represents itself  in the form of the alienated, numb, consumer society´s believe in war and the supposed results of retalliating or preventive violence. Such words do not imply any sort of simpathy for a social structure that is characterized by the lack of rights to women or structure saturated with discrimination based on religion, class or educational status; such words simply highlight the fact that in the end we are all responsible for each other and every human being has to face their own crime against humanity in their own personal war.