- technology triumphs in a pair synchronous events from two continents;
- International Contemporary Ensemble (US) and Skerpla (Iceland) play Braxton and Snæbjörnsdóttir
The organisers of Dark Music Days, Reykjavik’s annual festival of contemporary Icelandic music, have regretfully announced the postponement of most of the planned events until January 2022 because of further lockdown restrictions in Iceland to prevent the spread of Covid-19.
The festival, already pushed forward from January 2021, was due to take place from April 20 – 24, 2021 with a lively line-up of live concerts and events for socially-distanced audiences.
However, this year’s programme is not entirely lost. The Festival will live-stream two events to a worldwide audience on Tuesday, April 20 and Wednesday, April 21, 2021 in association with the groundbreaking American group International Contemporary Ensemble and Icelandic ensemble Skerpla.
Both events (described below) will be streamed live on Dark Music Days’ Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/myrkirmusikdagar
Most of this year’s planned events will appear in next year’s Dark Music Days, which will take place from Tuesday January 25 – Saturday, January 29, 2022.
“The festival next year will be bigger than ever before and we cannot wait to see our audiences in January 2022”, said Artistic Director Ásmundur Jónsson.
Dark Music Days virtual events 2021 – live-streamed from two continents
Tuesday, April 20 at 19.00h GMT (18.00h Iceland time; 20.00h (CET)
Panel Discussion on the work of Anthony Braxton
Free, but RSVP via Eventbrite:
Wednesday, April 21 at 22.00h (GMT); (21.00h Iceland time; 23.00h (CET)
Concert of works by Anthony Braxton & Bergrún Snæbjörnsdóttir
(International Contemporary Ensemble & Skerpla)
Free, live-streamed at: https://www.facebook.com/myrkirmusikdagar
Dark Music Days – in association with International Contemporary Ensemble and Icelandic ensemble Skerpla – will present a free live-streamed concert from two continents on Wednesday, April 21 at 22.00h GMT (21.00h Iceland time; 23.00h CET). The programme comprises works by the African American experimental composer Anthony Braxton and the World Première of Ecognosis, a new audio-visual work by the young Icelandic composer Bergrún Snæbjörnsdóttir.
The concert will be preceded by an Introductory Panel Discussion on Braxton’s work on Tuesday, April 20 at 19.00h GMT (18.00h Iceland time; 20.00h CET). Ensemble members will be joined by special guests – sound artist Fay Victor and saxophonist Darius Jones – as well as Reykjavik-based musicians of the Skerpla ensemble from Iceland University of the Arts (IUA), for this synchronous livestream.
The Icelandic elements of both discussion and concert will be broadcast from the Northern Lights Hall of Harpa, Iceland’s national concert hall in Reykjavik.
Both events promise to be a triumph of technology innovation in times of adversity. The International Contemporary Ensemble has been working with Tri-Centric Foundation and Nokia Bell Labs Experiments in Art and Technology on structuring multi-site collaborations. This research will be put into action with the Dark Music Days live-streamed performance, under the direction of James Fei.