Davið Brynjar Franzson

Davið Brynjar Franzson is an Icelandic composer of unrelenting and energized music, currently residing in New York. His works have been performed by ensembles such as Surplus (Freiburg), Ensemble Aventure (Freiburg), Asamisimasa (Oslo), Oslo Sinfonietta, Ensemble Adapter (Berlin), Caput (Reykjavik), Uusinta (Helsinki), +/- (London), Red Fish Blue Fish (San Diego) and Inauthentica (Los Angeles). His music has been performed at festivals such as Maerz Musik (Berlin), Global Interplay (New York), ISCM World Music Days (Stuttgart), Dark Days of Modern Music (Reykjavik), June in Buffalo, ICMC International Computer Music Conference (Belfast), Nordic Music Days (Helsinki), Running Hoofs Festival (Ulan Bator) and the International Musikinstitut Darmstadt (Darmstadt) where he received a Stipendiumpreis in 2008. He holds a doctorate degree from Stanford University where he worked under the guidance of Brian Ferneyhough and Mark Applebaum as well as with Tristan Murail at Columbia University.

Hvein was commissioned by Global Interplay in collaboration with Musik der Jahrhunderte and premiered by Ensemble Adapter at Maerz Musik, Berlin, 2006. It is the first part of a cycle in five sections called S – E, based on the novel Skugga-Baldur by the Icelandic poet Sjón. The other instrumental parts are Hviða and Hrif. The other two sections, interludes between the three ensemble sections, are electronic installations. Their duration can thus vary based on the requirements of the given performance.

A collection of arbitrary and unrelated objects in a communal space forms a collage. Any two events that are accidentally – or purposefully – juxtaposed within this space – are experienced in relation with each other and as such contextualize each other. Multiple events experienced together then allow for a continuous contextualization and paraphrasing of the parts that form the whole. This acute semiosis that is fuelled by the friction between the two layers gives rise to continually new readings of the materials. If a certain structural isomorphism is kept between the two layers – the music and the staging – then the friction between them should be strong enough to generate an accidental meaning in the ears of the audience – a meaning that is only present in the mind of the perceiver.     

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