FESTIVE SOUNDS AT NEW YEAR'S EVE

FESTIVE SOUNDS AT NEW YEAR'S EVE

December 31 – New Year's Eve at 4 p.m.

Tickets are sold at Hallgrímskirkja and at tix.is.

Admission fee 4,900 kr.

Welcome to Hátíðarhljóma at New Year's Eve as we bid farewell to the old year and welcome the new.

Festive music on New Year's Eve has been very popular in the musical life of Hallgrímskirkja for years.

This year, concertgoers will have the opportunity to enjoy more festive tunes for organ and brass quintet during the changing of the lights on the last day of the year.

North Atlantic Brass is a brass quintet that was formed in 2019 in Copenhagen by students from Iceland and Denmark at the Royal Academy of Music in that city.

The quintet has established itself on the Danish chamber music scene over the past five years and regularly performs throughout the country, but during its career it has also performed in Iceland, England and the United States.

The quintet emphasizes a diverse repertoire, ranging from Renaissance music to original works for the group. It is also interested in the Nordic folk music heritage, and this music is regularly performed in concerts in their own arrangements.

In the summer of 2024, the quintet participated in the Ryan Anthony Memorial Competition, an international chamber music competition in Los Angeles, where they won the competition. There, they performed works by American and Danish composers.

The members of the quintet are all very active musicians in Denmark and play regularly with orchestras such as the Danish National Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Danish Opera Orchestra, the Copenhagen Phil, the Malmö Symphony Orchestra and the Iceland Symphony Orchestra.

Bjorn Steinar Solbergsson is the organist and music director of Hallgrímskirkja in Reykjavík. He also teaches organ at the National Church Music School and the Iceland Academy of the Arts.

Björn Steinar studied music at the Akranes School of Music and the National Church Music School in Reykjavík. He continued his studies in Italy with James E. Göettsche and in France at the Conservatoire National de Region de Rueil Malmaison with Susan Landale, where he graduated with a soloist's diploma in organ playing (Prix de virtuosité) in 1986.

He worked as organist at Akureyri Church for 20 years. Björn Steinar has given numerous solo concerts here at home, in all the Nordic countries, in Europe and North America. He has played solo with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra, the North Iceland Symphony Orchestra, the Stavanger Symphony Orchestra and The Cleveland Institute of Music Orchestra. He has recorded for radio and television and on CDs, including all of Páll Ísólfsson's organ works for Skálholt Publishing and Jón Leif's organ concerto for the BIS publishing company.

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