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Anna Thorvaldsdóttir: Ubique
The first recording of the Icelandic composer's new fifty-minute chamber work will be released in February 2025
Icelandic composer Anna Thorvaldsdóttir's new fifty-minute long chamber work, Ubique will be released on 28 February 2025 on the Sono Luminus label. The new piece was co-commissioned by Carnegie Hall, the Cheswatyr Foundation, Kurt Chauviere and Density Arts for American flautist Claire Chase's Density 2036 project. The first performance was given in May 2023 at Carnegie Hall, performed by Claire Chase, flutes; Katinka Kleijn and Seth Parker Woods, cellos; and Cory Smythe, piano; with Levy Lorenzo, live sound. The same musicians have recorded the new album, and will give its first US West Coast performance at the Ojai Festival in California on 7 June 2024.
CD cover for Anna Thorvaldsdóttir's 'Ubique'. © 2025 Sono Luminus
Anna Thorvaldsdóttir writes:
'Ubique' lives on the border between enigmatic lyricism and atmospheric distortion. Through a combination of sounds, pitches, and textural nuances, low deep drones envelop lyrical materials and harmonies that breathe in and out of focus throughout the progress of the piece. The flow of the music is primarily guided by continuous expansion and contraction – of various kinds and durations – as it streams with subtle interruptions and frictions but ever moving forward in the overall structure. The work is inspired by the notion of being everywhere at the same time, an enveloping omnipresence, while simultaneously focusing on details within the density of each particle, echoed in various forms of fragmentation and interruption and in the sustain of certain elements of a sound beyond their natural resonance – throughout the piece, sounds are both reduced to their smallest particles and their atmospheric presence expanded towards the Infinite. As with my music generally, the inspiration is not something I am trying to describe through the music as such – it is a way to intuitively approach and work with the core energy, structure, atmosphere and material of the piece.
Anna Thorvaldsdóttir
Density 2036 is a twenty-four-year project launched by Claire Chase in 2013 to create a new body of flute repertoire leading up to the one-hundredth anniversary of Edgard Varèse's 1936 flute solo, Density 21.5. The project reimagines the solo flute literature over a quarter-century through commissions, performances, recordings, education and an accessible archive at densityarts.org
Claire Chase. Photo © 2022 Carrie Schneider
Anna Thorvaldsdóttir's music is frequently performed internationally and has been commissioned by many of the world's leading orchestras, ensembles and arts organizations, including the Berlin Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Orchestre de Paris, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, Munich Philharmonic, Ensemble Intercontemporain, Danish String Quartet, International Contemporary Ensemble, BBC Proms and Carnegie Hall. Her orchestral writing has garnered her awards from the New York Philharmonic, Lincoln Center, the Nordic Council, and the UK's Ivors Academy. Anna was Composer-in-Residence with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra from 2018-2023, and was in 2023 also in residence at the Aldeburgh Festival and the Tanglewood Festival of Contemporary Music. She holds a PhD from the University of California in San Diego, and is currently based in the London UK area. The music of Anna Thorvaldsdóttir is published by Chester Music, part of Wise Music Group.
Posted 29 December 2024 by Keith Bramich
