Edinburgh + Iceland orchestras with cellist Ólöf Sigursveinsdóttir

Concert Programme

• Oliver Kentish Hrímhvíta móðir
• Edward Elgar Cello Concerto in E Minor (Solo cello: Ólöf Sigursveinsdóttir)

Interval

• Robert Schumann Symphony No.4 in D Minor

This concert is part of a musical collaboration between Edinburgh's Open Orchestra and the Iceland Amateur Symphony Orchestra (Sinfóníuhljómsveit áhugamanna). In May 2025, members of the Open Orchestra travelled to Iceland to rehearse and then perform with the Iceland Amateur Symphony Orchestra in Reykjavik's Harpa Concert Hall. Now, in the second part of the exchange, the Icelandic musicians are coming to Edinburgh to rehearse and perform a programme with a distinctly Icelandic flavour.

The concert will open with Hrímhvíta móðir, a piece commissioned by the Iceland Amateur Symphony Orchestra in 2024 and written by its conductor Oliver Kentish. The title of the piece is taken from a poem by one of Iceland's most famous poets, Jónas Hallgrímsson (1807–1845) whose poem Ísland farsælda frón is an ode to Iceland, the ‘frost-white mother’ of the title. We will then be joined by Icelandic cellist, Ólöf Sigursveinsdóttir, who will be the soloist for a performance of Elgar's Cello Concerto. After an interval, the concert will conclude with Schumann's Symphony No.4.

Ólöf Sigursveinsdóttir

Ólöf comes from a musical family, her mother being a singer and father an orchestral conductor and horn player. Ólöf began her cello studies aged five under the guidance of Nora Kornblueh at the Sigursvein D. Kristinsson School of Music and with Gunnar Kvaran at the Reykjavík College of Music. She completed her Bachelor's and Master's degrees at the Stuttgart University of Music in Germany where she also studied conducting and baroque cello. She has given solo concerts throughout Europe and performs regularly in Iceland as well as annually at the music festival she founded in the north of Iceland (berjadagar.is). Ólöf has a special interest for new audiences in music and created the project The Sixth Suite along with one of Iceland’s leading artists, Sigtryggur Bjarni Baldvinsson. There she performed Bach's 6th cello suite alongside a three-dimensional artwork. Ólöf conducts the orchestra Icelandic Strings which she founded in 2017 and has premiered many string works with them. As soloist, she most recently performed the Schumann Cello Concerto with the East Iceland Symphony Orchestra and this is her second appearance with the Iceland Amateur Orchestra.

Host or Publisher Open Orchestra