Icelandic composer Daníel Bjarnason has garnered widespread acclaim for his debut album, Processions (2010), with Time Out NY declaring that Bjarnason ‘create(s) a sound that comes eerily close to defining classical music’s undefinable brave new world’.
Daníel works equally as conductor and composer and has worked with many different ensembles including the London Sinfonietta, Ulster Orchestra and Sinfonietta Cracovia. He also regularly conducts the Icelandic Opera and Iceland Symphony Orchestra.
Daníel has won numerous awards and grants. In 2008 and 2011 he received a special recommendation for his work at the International Rostrum for Composers. In 2010 he was nominated for the prestigious Nordic Council’s Music Prize, and won the Kraumur Music Award. Later that year, Processions won the Best Composer/Best Composition category at the Icelandic Music Awards.
Daníel’s versatilty as an arranger and conductor has led to collaborations with a broad array of musicians outside the classical field, including Sigur Rós, Efterklang, múm and Ólöf Arnalds amongst others.
The American Youth Symphony, in partnership with the Los Angeles Children’s Chorus, is proud to be the first American orchestra to premiere a commission by this rising star. To learn more about Daníel and listen to some of his music, visit his page on Bedroom Community’s website by clicking here.
AYS Executive Director Janneke Straub’s interview with composer Daníel Bjarnason
Did you play in a youth orchestra growing up or sing in a children’s chorus?
Unfortunately, I didn’t have much experience with youth orchestras as a kid, since my main instrument was piano. However I managed to sneak into the school orchestra sometimes when they needed extra percussion. My main instrument on those occasions was the bass drum, and I consider the highlight of my percussion career playing Tchaikovsky 4 on the bass drum. Later, when I was studying conducting in Freiburg, Germany, I got to play a lot of piano and celeste in the university orchestra, which was great for me, both as conductor and as a composer. I have a great deal of experience with choir singing, and sang in a chorus both as a kid and as a teenager. There is a rich choir tradition in Iceland and many people who are not musicians sing in choirs.
Please tell us about some of your recent projects.
I recently released an album called Sólaris, which is a piece of music that I wrote with Ben Frost. We performed and recorded Sólaris with the Sinfonietta Cracovia from Krakow, Poland. It is a piece based on the original story of Stanislav Lem and the movie by Andrei Tarkovsky (some people might recognize the Hollywood remake by Soderbergh).
Is this your first premiere in the United States?
This is my first large scale premiere in the US. I believe my only other US premiere was when I played a small piano piece that I had written on John Schaefer’s radio show in New York City a couple of years ago.
What would you say about The Isle Is Full of Noises to the orchestra, to introduce them to your work, before the first read through?
I would talk about the words of Shakespeare, and tell them how when I was writing this I imagined the orchestra to be the Island on which The Tempest happens, this enchanted island that has many sounds and moods and atmospheres, from very gentle and beautiful to the most violent and raging.
What is the audience going to experience?
One of the things that I find wonderful about music is that everyone can experience it in their own way, and a piece of music can have many different meanings to many different people. I don’t want to say what is right or wrong and I don’t even believe there is such a thing. This is also the reason why I usually don’t write program notes.
Now, if you could invite anyone you like to this concert, who would you invite?
Shakespeare. And my grandfather.
What is next on your calendar? What other commissions are you working on?
I am working on a piece for the LA Phil that will be premiered in October, conducted by John Adams as part of the Green Umbrella series. Then there is a new chamber opera on the horizon, my first opera. But currently I am rehearsing La Bohème at the Icelandic Opera, which opens on March 16th.
Icelandic composer Daníel Bjarnason has garnered widespread acclaim for his debut album, Processions (2010), with Time Out NY declaring that Bjarnason ‘create(s) a sound that comes eerily close to defining classical music’s undefinable brave new world’.
