Composer

Join City of London Sinfonia and science communicator, atmospheric physicist, and author Dr Simon Clark on a journey across the globe from pole to pole, taking in the freezing desolation of the tundra, the vast expanse of the oceans, and the humid claustrophobia of the tropics. The soundtrack to your adventure will be a selection of classical pieces representing the cloud formations we encounter as we make our way from the Antarctica to the Arctic.

Music from Pole to Pole: Cloud Formations from Antarctica to the Arctic

Smith Square Hall

Join City of London Sinfonia and science communicator, climate physicist, and author Dr Simon Clark on a journey across the globe from pole to pole, taking in the freezing desolation of the tundra, the scorching heat of the desert, and the humid claustrophobia of the tropics. The soundtrack to your adventure will be a selection of classical pieces representing the cloud formations we encounter as we make our way from the Antarctica to the Arctic. Revisit old favourites such as Vivaldi’s Summer invoking the altocumulus castellanus – small individual fluffy clouds home in the tropics, which look cute but can warn of thunderstorms, with dynamic lightning.

Music From Pole To Pole

Open, icy expanses, deep, dark forests and conflict. Welcome to a Nordic concert with the Odense Symphony Orchestra! This concert's program is composed of three masterpieces composed by three strong Nordic voices: Carl Nielsen from Denmark, Jean Sibelius from Finland and Anna Thorvaldsdóttir from Iceland. Sibelius' En Saga is a tone poem that does not have an actual story as its foundation, but describes a dark mood . The result is like a somewhat disturbing trip in a dark forest - with great and at the same time subtle music by the Finnish master. Archora by Anna Thorvaldsdottir is from 1922, and has almost immediately become a classic for orchestra. Like a glacier, the music rushes forward and along the way gives the audience a sense of infinity in space and time. As if everything that keeps us tied to the earth is cut away, leaving us floating in space. So does the beginning of Nielsen's 5th Symphony, but so much happens after the quietly swaying theme at the beginning that the ground connection is quickly found again. The 5th Symphony has a famous snare drum solo, where the percussionist in the score is almost asked to fight the rest of the orchestra, and even though the symphony was written against the background of war and conflict, there is, as always, indomitable energy and exuberant life with Carl Nielsen.

Ollikainen & Nielsen's 5.

Odense Concert Hall

EPSG:4326

New Music Ensemble

The University of Texas at Austin

Opening the program is Wolfgang Mozart’s charming Symphony No. 33, followed by Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s orchestrally imaginative Archora, inspired by the “primordial energy” of her homeland, Iceland. Closing the program, international star Hilary Hahn is soloist in one of the greatest works in the repertoire: Brahms’s Violin Concerto. Brahms composed this rich, lyrical work in 1878 for, and with the advice of, his friend Joseph Joachim, a towering virtuoso of the age.

Andris Nelsons conducts Mozart, Thorvaldsdottir, and Brahms with Hilary Hahn, violin

Boston Symphony Hall

Philharmonic Orchestra – Jeffery Meyer, conductor

Musical Arts Center

The frosty magic of the Russian winter inspired Tchaikovsky’s First Symphony: music so tuneful, and so fresh, that you can almost see your breath in the air! Anna Thorvaldsdottir dreams of the vast stillness of Icelandic nature. And the great Ian Bostridge – possibly Britain’s finest living tenor – leads a wild parade through Britten’s shimmering, magical musical dreamscape. This promises to be a truly gripping evening…

Britten & Tchaikovsky

The International Convention Centre

AXIOM

Lincoln Center

A Far Cry beckons you on a sonic journey to Stonehenge. The early light of the emerging dawn pulses and shimmers on granite, awakening the bucolic English countryside. This concert is crafted to evoke and transport you to the enigmatic, pre-historic monument by way of musical selections which draw inspiration from the rising sunlight, the sculptures of Isamu Noguchi, and nature itself.

A Far Cry | Stonehenge

Longy School of Music of Bard College

Boston Conservatory Choirs, directed by Dr. Stephen Spinelli and featuring graduate conducting candidates Naomi Bennett and Edith Hernandez, present A Light in the Dark—Winter Landscapes from Around the World. This performance will provide a respite from the cold of winter, featuring repertoire by Icelandic composer Ana Þorvaldsdóttir and Latvian composer Eriks Esenvalds, as well as some beloved seasonal classics.

Boston Conservatory Choirs: A Light in the Darkness—Winter Landscapes from Around the World

Saint Clements Eucharistic Shrine

Discover the jaw-dropping artistry of next-gen talents as the 100 musicians of the SF Symphony Youth Orchestra come together to explore repertoire standards and new works alike

Youth Orchestra

Davies Symphony Hall

The SF Symphony Youth Orchestra opens its season with a program featuring Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s Metacosmos.

San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra

Re-emerging after its hugely successful world premiere at the 2022 BBC Proms with Eva Ollikainen, Icelandic composer Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s ARCHORA portrays abstractions – musical spectra and clashing extremes drawn out through her focus on primordial energy and parallel realms. Its broad, gestural nature contradicts and complements the sweeping symphonic intricacies of Debussy’s La mer. Prefacing such powerfully dramatic pieces, a traditional bout of Haydn’s Sturm und Drang-driven drama in the overture to ‘L’isola disabitata’ (The Deserted Island) and a pre-emptive respite as Richard Goode treats us to one of Mozart’s most imaginative concertos, his Eighteenth.

BBC Philharmonic | 14 October | Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s ARCHORA

The Bridgewater Hall

Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s acclaimed new orchestral work ARCHORA and Hans Abrahamsen’s horn concerto are both performed here for the first time in Sweden, the latter featuring the orchestra’s principal hornist Chris Parkes. Acclaimed Finnish conductor Eva Ollikainen concludes the concert with Jean Sibelius’ beloved fifth symphony.

Nordic Weeks: Sibelius’ Fifth Symphony

SR Berwaldhallen

In this epic programme, the BBC Symphony Orchestra returns to Snape Maltings Concert Hall to perform Mahler’s Symphony No.1 and the UK premiere of Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s AIŌN, an electrifying exploration of time.

BBC SO at Aldeburgh Festival

Snape Maltings

Be swept up by a stirring trio of powerful orchestral works by Britten, Tchaikovsky and Aldeburgh Festival featured composer, Anna Thorvaldsdottir.

BBC Philharmonic II at Aldeburgh Festival

“A brilliant musician and an extraordinary visionary” (Wall Street Journal), Pierre-Laurent Aimard has built his reputation as a go-to of contemporary music and collaborator for composers but is celebrated for his interpretation of historic repertoire as well. Aimard joins the LA Phil for Beethoven’s wonder-filled Fourth Piano Concerto, with the unusual quiet drama of its second movement. Eva Ollikainen is the chief conductor of several orchestras in Europe and leads the U.S. premiere of a new work by Icelandic composer Anna Thorvaldsdottir and the gorgeous Suite from Richard Strauss’ Der Rosenkavalier.

Beethoven and Strauss

Walt Disney Concert Hall

The sensational Danish String Quartet returns to perform the third concert in its ongoing Doppelgänger Project, pairing Schubert’s Rosamunde Quartet with a newly commissioned work by Icelandic composer Anna Thorvaldsdottir. Schubert’s serene and solemn quartet bears the weight of the composer’s declining health and heavy heart during the period of its composition—when he died a few years after its premiere, Rosamunde was his only quartet to have been performed publicly in its entirety; it was also his only chamber work published in his lifetime. Thorvaldsdottir is widely admired as one of the most original voices of her generation, praised for creating vast, visceral, and ravishing musical landscapes that conjure at once a sense of “immensity and intimacy” (Gramophone).

Danish String Quartet

First Congregational Church

The Rhythm Method presents a concert of contemporary works for string quartet, joined by contemporary performance students. Works by George Lewis, Shelley Washington, and members of the Rhythm Method will be performed.

Guest Artist: The Rhythm Method

Boston Conservatory at Berklee

Icelandic composer Anna Thorvaldsdottir curates an evening of Nightcap, our cabaret-style series of music and conversation in the new Kenneth C. Griffin Sidewalk Studio.

Nightcap: Anna Thorvaldsdottir

Ludovic Morlot leads one of Shostakovich’s greatest symphonies, depicting the despair of the Stalin regime but ending in a musical triumph. Formidable pianist Sergio Tiempo takes on the striking concerto Prokofiev composed for himself to play in the conservatory’s competition—which he won. Opening the program, Anna Thorvaldsdottir explores the natural balance between beauty and chaos in her piece Metacosmos, which led the Boston Globe to declare, “There is possibly no other composer working today who is so adept at channeling the massive forces of nature.”

Shostakovich and Prokofiev with Ludovic Morlot

Taking its title from the famous African American Spiritual, this eclectic concert explores themes of homecoming and aspiring towards paradise. Earlier this year, we premiered a short film of Derrick Skye’s, a piece which, in the artist's words, "sonically and visually interprets the process of gaining release from restraint using the mind, body, soul, and voice". After being postponed from our 2019–20 season, this breathtaking new commission will finally receive its live debut. We're also thrilled to present world premieres by two brilliant composers— Saunder Choi and Dale Trumbore.

City Called Heaven

Experience the Orchestra perform Ravel’s Boléro, a masterpiece of orchestration and evolving textures.

The National Youth Orchestra: Illuminate

Warwick Arts Centre

Dalia Stasveska reunites with the OSM to conduct Dvořák’s Symphony no. 8 and Bruch’s magnificent Violin Concerto, featuring prodigious young soloist Randall Goosby.

Bruch’s Unforgettable Violin Concerto

Place des Arts

There is something otherworldly beautiful about Bent Sørensen's music. As if it comes from a distant, almost non-existent, yet familiar place.

A Little Piece Of Heaven

Southern Danish Conservatory of Music

Conductor Dalia Stasevska leads the Symphony in the world premiere of Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s Cello Concerto, performed by German-Canadian virtuoso Johannes Moser. Thorvaldsdottir, a former cellist, knows every nuance of the featured instrument and supports its rich contralto voice in her singular sound world. Rachmaninoff’s Symphonic Dances, his final score, represents his late period at its opulent best. It’s an intensely autobiographical work: a summary of his achievements, if not a map of his psyche.

Anna Thorvaldsdottir

Composer

Events

Upcoming events

Jan 5, 2025

The National Youth Orchestra: Illuminate · Warwick Arts Centre

Jan 23, 2025

Bruch’s Unforgettable Violin Concerto · Orchestre symphonique de Montréal

Mar 13, 2025

A Little Piece Of Heaven · Esbjerg Ensemble

15 - 17 May, 2025

Stasevska Conducts Rachmaninoff · San Francisco Symphony

Past events

Oct 15, 2024

Music from Pole to Pole: Cloud Formations from Antarctica to the Arctic · City of London Sinfonia

Oct 15, 2024

Music From Pole To Pole · Sinfonia Smith Square

About

Anna Thorvaldsdottir hasn't added a bio