From our far-flung correspondent: The innovative Seigla Festival opened Friday, August 8^th in Reykjavík’s glittering Harpa, featuring an American-born star of the Royal Academy of Music playing an experimental, breathtaking program for contemporary flute.

THE LOCATION

Harpa is an acoustic and architectural marvel, named in 2009 by democratic vote after both an early spring month from the old Nordic calendar and a musical instrument [harp]. The newest symphonic/operatic complex in the Nordic countries, it is comparable in its beauty to the Oslo Opera House (2003-2008), which rises like an iceberg made of Carrera marble from the head of the Oslofjord.

The Hörpuhorn performing space, used for the opening ceremony, is much more than a suspended balcony in the Harpa building. It is an incredibly resonant, light-filled space at the very front of the main building; listeners are allowed to sit at cabaret-style tables right next to Olafur Eliasson’s spectacular glass and steel façade. The Danish-Icelandic architect, known locally for his spectacular 2008 New York Waterfalls project (article HERE) and his bucolic floating island at Bard’s Annandale-on-Hudson campus (The parliament of reality, photos HERE), created a tessellated steel framework clad with geometric shaped glass panels of different colors, lit from within by 714 programmable LEDs at night (currently lit from 11pm-5am with rainbow colors to celebrate Icelandic Pride week). The whole complex of theaters and conference/meeting spaces was built between 2007-2011, with the opening concert broadcast live (Artistic Director Vladimir Ashkanzy conducting the Icelandic Symphony Orchestra) from the deep-ruby Eldborg Hall, which looks like the ancient heart of the volcanic crater it is named for (photos HERE). It is the first purpose-built concert hall in Reykjavík (2014 historical article HERE).

The original site was originally occupied by a huge coal pile and shipping pier, so this (literal) jewel of a building, fronted by a beautiful marina, has transformed a significant stretch of Reykjavík’s waterfront. The related hotel, retail, and office developments were completed between 2018-2023, and the complex also hosts the newly reorganized Icelandic National Opera. Originally founded as the now defunct Íslenska óperan (1979-2023), the new company will be a division of the National Theatre of Iceland (based in the nearby Þjóðleikhúsið theatrical complex) and present operas at Harpa beginning next year in 2026.

THE FESTIVAL OPENING

The Seigla chamber music festival takes its name from an Icelandic word meaning optimistic toughness, tenacity, and resolve.  When the University of Iceland polled citizens in 2013 to establish “the most beautiful word in the Icelandic language,” seigla was one of the top three suggestions from the young adult age group (those born 1988-1997): one voter called it, “an unendingly beautiful word that describes limitless power,”

The Seigla Festival is run by a quintet of young, enthusiastic artists with excellent taste and sterling academic credentials. Project Manager Pétur Ernir Svavarsson (bio HERE), an award-winning singer, pianist and storyteller with degrees in musical theater and voice from the Royal Academy of Music and Iceland University of the Arts (LHÍ, website HERE), welcomed patrons and audience members to the Festival.

Founding Director Erna Vala Arnardóttir (bio HERE) holds a Master’s degree in piano from the Sibelius Academy, degrees in music education and piano performance from LHÍ, and is currently pursuing a PhD at the Royal Academy of Music in Performance Research. The Seigla Festival is her “main research venue” and she was just appointed head of the instrumental department at LHÍ. Erna Vala introduced Friday’s welcome ceremony (in Icelandic), describing the weekend as “a chamber music festival that reimagines the traditional concert format.” Seigla takes places annually in several parts of the Harpa concert complex, with most concerts in the flexible, modern Norðurljós [Northern Lights] Hall, on the second weekend of August. It is a must-see, worth-the-ticket-from-Boston series of concerts that will delight lovers of vocal music and the best contemporary chamber music.

Arnardóttir described this year’s focus as “narrative: we invite the audience and performers to interpret the theme in the broadest and most personal ways, and from all kinds of perspectives, whether by exploring how the concert experience itself can create a shared narrative between performers and audience, or how music can in some way carry a narrative on its own. The narrative may emerge through the music, the text, the space, or the interactions. The concept can be clearly defined or it can be experimental and open.” She then gave comprehensive biographical remarks in Icelandic about every performer featured this year. Participating artists for the first day alone included American flautist Lydia Walquist (website HERE), Polish cellist/viola de gambist Mikołaj Piszczorowicz (bio HERE), Chinese pianist/harpsichordist and mellifluous speaker Xiaowen Shang (website HERE), operatic soprano and recent Salzburg Mozarteum graduate Bryndís Guðjónsdottir (website HERE), Amsterdam-based mezzo-soprano and Reykjavík Opera Days Artistic Director Guja Sandholt (website HERE), and LHÍ professor and pianist Eva Þyri Hilmarsdóttir (YouTube channel HERE).

This week includes an original troll play with music composed and performed by the chamber ensemble Studarómar, a pre-concert discussion and concert of contemporary music by the KIMI Ensemble, two vocal concerts (Poulenc’s La voix humaine and a recital of duets by female Romantic and Modern composers), and three opportunities to hear the spectacular, London-based virtuoso trio Temporal Harmonies, Inc. The trio will interpret graphic scores drawn by audience members (projected above their heads) and repeat British-Filipino composer Zygmund de Somogyi’s recently commissioned work In the Event that You Stay, which just premiered at Wigmore Hall in April 2025. Listen to the premiere HERE, in which all four movements were played continuously. The Royal Philharmonic Society Composers Programme commissioned this twenty-four-minute work as one of a total of eight pieces by UK-based composers this season (article HERE).

The musical portion of the opening ceremony was worth the plane ticket from Boston. American-Chinese flautist Lydia Walquist (as she describes herself), presented two brand new works, both dedicated to her, that explored the intersection of romantic tone colors and extended techniques. She expertly contrasted a transparent, hollow “yellow tone” (my use of these colors is taken from Trevor Wye’s extensive writing on the subject) and a rich, sizzling “purple” tone; Harvard alum Andrew Edwards CB has demonstrated the yellow/purple tone contrast (listen HERE). 

Walquist is a marvel of breathtaking virtuosity. She has performed with the Dunedin Consort, the Knussen Chamber Orchestra, and the RAM Symphony (as one of the Academy Baroque Soloists); listening to her play her favorite new music was one of the most moving concert experiences I’ve had since moving to Boston twenty years ago. As a lifelong teacher of flute and local Boston flute choir performer, I appreciated the way she subtly varied the vowel-shapes inside of her mouth to create more of a narrative quality in her melodic playing. For those who enjoy more traditional contemporary flute music, you can hear her performance (two years ago) of the challenging Scherzo from Lowell Liebermann’s 1987 Flute Sonata HERE.

She deftly beatboxed while playing, unflappably incorporating extended techniques such as key clicks, harmonics, simultaneous singing, breathy tones, overblown spurts of air, and multiphonics. She played Ashkan Layegh’s for Solo Flute (2024-25), haunting music that recalls and refers to Luciano Berio’s first Sequenza (from his similar cycle of fourteen solo works). The highlight of the evening was Ms. Walquist’s reprise of her own premiere of Sarah Walze’s Silver-plated Steel, which she commissioned for her final recital at the Royal Academy of Music. Ms. Walze’s composition was inspired by the practice of silversmithing: “Imagine delicate coils of silver wire being flattened against a cold steel block.” You can hear Ms. Walquist’s second performance of the work, from June 30, 2025, with a superimposed score for the work, HERE. Stay tuned for more from the Seigla Festival!

Laura Stanfield Prichard is a Dramaturg for the NYPhilharmonic, a certified K-12 teacher of music/dance/art, and a theater pianist. She teaches at Brandeis, Bunker Hill, and Dominican University (CA) and was the Asst. Director for the Grammy Award-winning SFSymphony Chorus, preparing music for Michael Tilson Thomas.