Two Concerts

Besides sleeping and wandering around like sleep-deprived, jet-lagged, tourist-zombies, we also attended a concert on our first day in Iceland (Sunday, July 24).  I booked the show before we left.  It was a performance of Icelandic folkmusic through the ages by a fancy Icelandic opera diva, named Sólveig Samúelsdóttir and her classical guitar/vocal accompaniment--a fellow named Örn Arnarson.  They were spectacularly well-trained classical musicians, and (of course) just as charming as two half-elf Icelanders can be. 

Harpa is the name of the venue.  It is a beautiful new concert hall right on the so-called "smokey bay"of Reykjavik.  I did not get a great picture of the outside, but it is brilliantly asymmetrical and truly a lovely venue. 

Also, I bought a fedora in California before we headed out. 

Stephanie blends right in in Iceland by the way.  She claims to have some Nordic blood and the Icelanders can tell.  Today in a bookstore she was addressed in Icelandic by an employee.  I will never be mistaken for a local. 

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On Monday, July 25 we also attended a concert at the famous Hallgrimskirkja Cathedral, which is an impressive and distinctly Icelandic building at the highest point of the city.  It looks like this:

It was one of my goals that while we were in the capital we might find a chance to listen to a choral concert, preferably at Hallgrimskirkja.  (btw "skirkja" means "church" and this one is named after an important Lutheran pastor/poet named Halgrimur Petursson).   

The Grapevine, the fantastic local weekly paper in English, had an advertisement about a performance of the "Motet Choir" performing traditional Ielandic choral music   and we jumped all over it. 

There is an elevator that takes you to the top for a spectacular view of the city, but we arrived too late.  We will try it tomorrow. 

They have a radically large pipe-organ that I was not able to hear since the concert was a Capella. 

They were ridiculously impressive and the arrangements of the choral music were very good.  They performed seven "sacred" hymns (many penned by Hallgrimur Petersson himself).

 Then they seven songs that were introduced as "profane," though who can tell the difference.  In Icelandic it all sounds like angel-music.

Unfortunately, I failed to format my memory stick on the sound recorder, so I only got this clip I am sharing in the "video" above.  This is not my favorite piece by far, but it gives a sense of the strength of the choir.

One last comment: in the church there were these posters hanging up that indicated the seven days of creation.  They were...odd:

Day three: Trinity.  That makes sense.

Day four: Plan... Ok.

Day five: Cwica?!  What the heck is a Cwica?

Day six: Sex?!

Wunderball.