School of Music

During the session Halla Steinunn Stefánsdóttir aims to give an insight into her activity as performer, composer and curator. Much of her work has in the last few years been conducted as artistic research in music at Lund University in Sweden. This process has centered around looking at "situated actions" (Suchman, 1987) through a series of micro-labs that were set within as well as outside institutional realm. The presentation is foreseen to link to the quadrophonic installation 'He(a)r' (Stefánsdóttir 2016/18), her collaboration with composer Davíð Brynjar Franzson on 'An Urban Archive as an English Garden' (Franzson, 2019) and the 9 mono channel installation 'Fjärilarna steg upp' [The butterflies ascended] (Stefánsdóttir, 2020) created for the Botanical Garden in Lund, Sweden.

Performer, composer, curator Halla Steinunn Stefánsdóttir is one of Iceland’s leading figures within the contemporary music scene. She has been the artistic director of Nordic Affect since its inception in 2005. Believing that the exciting things happen ‘in the connection’ Halla Steinunn’s work with the ensemble has been a tour de force when it comes to collaborative relationships with composers, visual artists, and producers. As an avid promoter of solo works for baroque violin last year saw her nominated for an Iceland Music Award as Soloist of the Year for premieres that stretched from telematic concerts over to performances within a hologram and sound installations. Halla Steinunn's compositional output has spanned everything from electro-acoustic compositions to sound and media installations. Recent projects have included 'Spherical White with Diamond', a site-respondent installation created for NATUR (UK) in collaboration with National Trust Formby (UK) and 'The butterflies ascended', an installation of 8 mono channels created for The Botanical Garden in Lund (SE).