Seigla, August 8th-10th 2025
This year’s programme centers around the theme narrative. We invite the audience and performers to interpret the theme in the broadest and most personal ways, and from all kinds of perspectives, whether by exploring how the concert experience itself can create a shared narrative between performers and audience, or how music can in some way carry a narrative on its own. The narrative may emerge through the music, the text, the space, or the interactions. The concept can be clearly defined or it can be experimental and open.
The festival opens with a performance by singers Guja Sandholt and Bryndís Guðjónsdóttir, who guide the audience on a journey through music by women composers rarely heard in Iceland. Their programme sheds light on the experiences of women in the world of music and on how little we still know about the music that women have created throughout history.
On Saturday we celebrate Pride in Reykjavík, and encourage all Seigla guests to take part in the parade and othere events at Pride Festival, while also joining us in Harpa for Seigla’s events on Saturday afternoon. In the evening, not to be missed, soprano Kristín E. Mäntylä performs Poulenc’s one-act opera La Voix humaine. Later that night, the London based group Temporal Harmonies Inc. presents a thrilling programme where the audience is invited to co-create music using graphic scores that will be interpreted live in the second half of the performance.
On Sunday, the chamber group Stundarómur leads a family concert featuring their own arrangements of folk tales, alongside original stories and music. The festival weekend concludes with a celebration of the centenary of the renowned Icelandic writer Thor Vilhjálmsson, including premieres of new works by María Huld Markan and Haukur Tómasson, composed to his texts and performed by KIMI Ensemble.
Most of this year’s Seigla festival program takes place in Norðurljós Hall, while the family concert by Stundarómur and other open events will be held in Hörpuhorn. To close the weekend, all guests and contributors are invited to a festive gathering, an opportunity to toast, mingle with performers, meet the festival team, and connect with Seigla’s friends and supporters.
Sponsors
Friends of Seigla
Seigla and Iceland University of the Arts
Seigla and Royal Academy of Music
Festival organisers
Svavarsson
Árnadóttir
Þorsteinsson