A lecture at the Music Department of IAA on Friday, February 16th at 12:45
Room 633. Everybody welcome.

In this lecture, composer Páll Ragnar Pálsson will discuss his ieas on music and composition and reflect on his works, Quake and Afterquake.

Páll Ragnar Pálsson (1977) holds a PhD from the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre where he studied composition with Helena Tulve. In his doctoral thesis Páll Ragnar researched a 17th century manuscript of early Lutheran music from the West-Fjords of Iceland under the guidance of Estonian musicologist Urve Lippus, whose term “linear thinking in music” reflects in Páll’s own compositions. Páll music, inspired by East-European art music, can be described as organic linear tranformations with a spiritual undertone. In his youth Páll used to play in the indie rock band Maus. His ideas on sound can to some extent be traced back to that period. His works have been performed in concert halls such as the Hamburg Elbphilharmonie and Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, where his cello concert Quake was premiered by Sæunn Þorsteinsdóttir and the LA Philharmonic. For the same festival Páll arranged the music of Sigur Rós for symphony orchestra. Páll’s violin concerto Nostalgia was awarded as composition of the year at Icelandic Music Awards 2013. Last summer he released his debut album by the same name under Bad Taste Records. Páll teaches composition at Iceland Academy of the Arts and is a member of the board of the Composers Society of Iceland.

In his lecture Páll Ragnar will discuss his ieas on music and composition and reflect on his works, Quake and Afterquake.

Sæunn Thorsteinsdottir is our most internationally acclaimed cellist. She lives in New York and teaches at the Washinton University in Seattle as well as touring as a soloist.