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Valgeir Sigurðsson's Sleep Concert and These Trying Times Premiered at the Arctic Arts Festival

Aug. 08, 2022

On June 30 and July 1, two new works from Icelandic composer and producer Valgeir Sigurðsson were premiered at the Arctic Arts Festival in Harstad, Norway, where Sigurðsson is an associate artist.

On June 30 Sleep Concert, a unique, nine-hour new work was performed at the Thon Arena. Audiences were reminded to “bring sleeping bags and sleeping pads” to a performance where they were encouraged to drift in and out of sleep to a meditative, somnambulant musical backdrop. The work for electronics is soothing and meditative in character, wrapping around the audience’s dreams and framing their late night or early morning thoughts.

The piece reflects a longstanding artistic preoccupation in Valgeir Sigurðsson’s work with dreaming, sleepwalking, and mysteries of the nocturnal. For example, his 70-minute music theatre work Wide Slumber for Lepidopterists, which premiered in 2014 at Reykjavik Arts Festival, is a meditation on the stages of sleep and the life cycle of lepidopterae (the study of moths and butterflies). Based on a text by Angela Rawlings, it has at its center The Somnopterist and The Insomniac. 2014 also saw the premiere of another evocation of nocturnal moods and melancholy No Nights Dark Enough, a 30-minute work for chamber orchestra and electronics, performed by the City of London Sinfonia.

The festival saw another premiere from Sigurðsson on July 1. These Trying Times for wind band was performed by Lars Erik Gudim and the Norwegian Army Band. The five-minute piece is vigorous and highly rhythmic, making extensive use of percussion in a thrilling concert opener. Last year’s festival notably saw the Scandinavian premiere of Cognitive Models, a 42-minute piece for string quartet and electronics by the chamber ensemble MiNensemblet.

Listen to Valgeir Sigurðsson’s Past Tundra (2011/arr. 2013)

(Crash Ensemble performs Valgeir Sigurðsson’s Past Tundra)

To learn more about Valgeir Sigurðsson, visit: fabermusic.com.

Valgeir Sigurðsson
Sleep Concert (2022)
electronic track on hire
480'

These Trying Times (2022)
for symphonic wind band
2.1.4.bcl.tsax.bsax.1-3.3.2.btbn.euph.1-timp-3perc: wdbl/tamb/BD/mar/mounted tamb/anvil/glsp/SD/vib-db
5'

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