Composers

Dr. Kjartan Ólafsson (1958) graduated in 1984 from the Reykjavík College of Music with a Bachelor of Music degree in composition. He continued his studies in Utrecht in Holland, at the Institute of Sonology, where he concentrated on electronic music, and later at the Sibelius Academy in ...

Played by the best orchestras, ensembles and soloists, his music reflects a powerful sense of drama. The variety of rhythms and sounds, the combination of lyrical and percussive moments, give to his compositions a unique intensity.

Egill Ólafsson studied voice and music theory at the Reykjavík College of Music 1970-1976. He has also attended various courses in Scandinavia related to theatre music. In recent years Egill has composed incidental music for theatre, motion pictures as well as musicals. Of his musica...

Hildigunnur Rúnarsdóttir completed a B.A. degree in composition from the Reykjavík College of Music in 1989. She continued her studies in Hamburg with Professor Günther Friedrichs, and in Copenhagen with Dr. Svend Hvidtfelt Nielsen. Hildigunnur has sung in a number of choirs, among t...

Gunnar Andreas Kristinsson (b.1976) studied with Kjartan Olafsson and Atli Heimir Sveinsson at The Reykjavik College of Music, with Krzysztof Meyer at Hochschule für Musik in Cologne and finally with Martijn Padding, Diderik Wagenaar and Clarence Barlow at The Royal Conservatory in The Ha...

Elín Gunnlaugsdóttir began her musical studies at the age of nine with the piano. She later studied at the Reykjavík College of Music where she graduated with a Diploma in Music Education in 1987 and a Diploma in Composition in 1993. Her teachers in composition were Thorkell Sigurbjörn...

Tómas R. Einarsson was born March 25th, 1953, in Blönduós, Iceland. His first composition appeared on record in 1982 and he wrote most of the compositions on the LP “Dessi ófétis jazz” (1985), and has since been active as a composer as well as a bassist. Besides his 13 records as ...

One of the most important figures in the current flowering of Icelandic music is Hafliði Hallgrímsson, born in 1941 in the small town of Akureyri on the north coast of Iceland. He began playing the cello at the age of ten and studied in Reykjavík and the Accademia Santa Cecilia in Rome....

Guðmundur Steinn Gunnarsson is an Icelandic composer writing music based on irregular and non-pulse based rhythms. This often requires presenting the music moving on a computer screen.