Organsummer in Hallgrímskirkja
The concert will be a calm and heartwarming moment where the music sends a prayer for peace to the universe.
Lenka Mátéová was born in Czechoslovakia. She completed her cantor exams from the Kromeriz Conservatory in Prague and earned her Masters Degree at the Prague Academy of Music. Mátéová has won several awards in her home country, and has also performed as a soloist in Europe. Mátéová has resided and performed in Iceland since 1990, first at Stödvarfjördur Town, East Iceland, and then she was appointed in 1993 as cantor of a church in Reykjavík City (Fella og Hólakirkja), and at the Kópavogur Church in 2007. Mátéová has also participated in chamber and choir music in Iceland, as well as pursuing a soloist career. In addition to her performances at churches, she has frequently accompanied (organ/piano) The Reykjavík Male Choir, The Reykjavík Boys Choir, The Motet choir and the choir, Hljómeyki, at their concerts in Iceland and abroad, as well as in recordings for television, radio and CD’s.
Alexandra Chernyshova - soprano and composer was selected in a group of 10 outstanding young Icelanders in 2014 for her contribution to culture in Iceland. In 2020, Alexandra received the Reykjanesbær Cultural Award. She completed an M.Mus degree from the Iceland Academy of the Arts, M.Ed. from the University of Kiev, a master's degree in opera singing and a singing teacher's degree from the Odessa Academy of Music and the Kiev Glier High Music College, as well as a BA from the National Kiev Linguistic University. Alexandra finished 8th grade in piano playing from Kiev Music School N1. In addition, she studied singing at the Michael Trimble Opera Institute and Katja Ricciarelli Opera Academy, poetry and chamber music at Pr. Hanno Blascke as well. She began her career in the field as a soloist at the Kiev Academic Musical Theater of Opera and Ballet. Alexandra has sung with the Kiev National Radio Orquestra, New York Contemporary Opera, in addition to which she has sung as a soloist with the Skagafjörður Opera, which she founded in 2006. Alexandra has sung all over Iceland, Europe, New York, China and Japan.
She has released three solo albums Alexandra soprano (2006), A Dream with Romantic Songs by Sergei Rachmaninov with accompaniment by Jónas Ingimundarsson (2008) and You and only you (2011). In 2020, the first original opera by Alexandra and Guðrún Ásmundsdóttir, The Poet and Bishop's daughter, won 1st place in the International Composer Competition Isaak Dunajevskiy and the aria Ave María from the same opera reached the top ten in the World Folk Vision international music competition. This year, an opera ballet for children and adults by Alexandra Chernyshova, The Northern Lights Fairytale, with her mother's story, Evgenia, won the Grand Prix at the Art Festival "Aurora" in Stockholm. In 2021, Alexandra premiered the original opera Good Day, Madam President about the first democratically elected female president in the world, Mrs. Vigdís Finnbogadóttir. Opera dedicated to Mrs. Vigdís life and work.