All Saints' Day

Sunday November 3rd at 17 hrs

Hljómeyki Chamber Choir

Stefan Sand conductor

Björn Steinar Sólbergsson organ

Aðgangseyrir / Admission  ISK 3.900

Hljómeyki Chamber Choir was founded in 1974. During its first years, the choir performed under the direction of Ruth L. Magnússon and concentrated primarily on secular music from all over the world. Since 1986, when the group began collaborating with the Skálholt Summer Concert Festival, they have concentrated on performing new Icelandic music, commissioning at least one major work annually. In its concerts at Skálholt, Hljómeyki premiered more than 50 pieces, most of them by prominent Icelandic composers. The choir also regularly takes part in new music festivals like the Nordic Music Days and the Icelandic Composers’ Society’s festival, Dark Music Days. 

In recent years the choir has performed with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra, singing the choir parts in Bizet‘s Carmen, Mozart‘s La clemenza di Tito and Richard Einhorn‘s Voices of Light, Gershwin‘s Porgy and Bess and most recently Fact of the Matter by Hildur Guðnadóttir. 

Hljómeyki has represented Iceland in choral competitions and festivals, and has published several CDs and publications on streaming services.

Hljómeyki held a festive 50 year anniversary concert in Hallgrímskirkja, April 2024, featuring music specifically written for the choir.

Hljómeyki’s conductor is Stefan Sand. Stefan Sand was born in Copenhagen in 1995. In 2017, he graduated as a pianist and piano teacher from the Royal Danish Conservatory of Music with Jens Elvekjær and Søren Rastogi. Since then, Stefan moved to Reykjavík, Iceland, where he was educated at Iceland's Academy of Arts as an innovative music mediator in the master's program "New Audiences and Innovative Practices" in 2021, and then as at the masters program in composition under ÚIfar Ingi Harraldsson, Hróðmar Sigurbjörnsson and Tryggvi M. Baldvinsson in 2023. Stefan has studied orchestra conducting privately with Frederik Støvring Olsen and at Iceland University of the Arts with Gunnsteinn Ólafsson, as well as choir conducting with Magnús Ragnarsson. Stefan is focused on communicating music via collaboration with other types of art forms and artists, as his project Look at the Music has demonstrated in 2021-2023. The project was a close artistic collaboration between deaf and hearing people, where the goal was to create a concert experience that both hearing impaired, deaf, and hearing people could enjoy. This resulted in a concert tour in the Nordic countries in 2023 where many works were performed by sign language soloists and a chamber choir. The music in the project is composed based on sign language in various ways. This project earned him a nomination for Sproti ársins (Upcoming Artist of the Year) at Gríman, the Icelandic Stage Arts Award in
2024. As a choir conductor, Stefan often writes music for choirs that he conducts himself, and although Stefan is newly graduated, he has already established himself as a composer and conductor in the Icelandic cultural scene and has written music for several choirs and soloists, including Iceland's University Choir, the
Women's Choir Vox Feminae, Art Across Vocal Ensemble, Guðrún Jóhanna Ólafsdóttir and Ólafur Freyr
Birkisson.Stefan works as a freelance composer in Iceland and Denmark and conducts the choirs Vox Feminae, Hljómeyki and Mótettukórinn.

Björn Steinar Sólbergsson, organist and music-director of Hallgrímskirkja - Reykjavík was born in Akranes, western Iceland in 1961. In 1981 he completed his studies at the National Church School of Music, majoring in organ, before studying for a year in
Rome with James E. Goëttsche. Björn Steinar then moved to France where he studied
with Susan Landale at the Conservatoire National de Musique de Rueil Malmaison and
received the Prix de Virtuosité in summer of 1986.
The same year he was appointed organist in Akureyri Church, north Iceland, where he
became very active in the musiclife of Akureyri.

In autumn 2006 he was appointed organist in Hallgrímschurch in Reykjavík. He also teaches the organ at the National Church School of Music in Reykjavík and at the Iceland University of the Arts.
Björn Steinar plays organ-music from all periods as well as Icelandic organ- music and
arrangements of Scandinavian folk-songs and dances.
His recordings of organ and choir music have been released on several CD´s and
broadcasted on Icelandic State Radio and TV.
He received the DV- Cultural-prize for the year 1999, Icelandic Optimism-prize in 2001
and he is The Akureyri Artist of the year 2002. Artist honorar salary in 1999 and 2015.
Björn Steinar has given concerts all over Europe, in USA, Canada and all Scandinavian
countries and performed as a soloist with the Icelandic Symphony Orchestra, the
Akureyri Chamber Orchestra, Stavanger Symphony orchestra and the Cleveland Institute
of Music Orchestra.