Seigla,
8.-10. August 2025
The festival programme for this year will be published here and on the Harpa webpage in late June.
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.
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 open evetns 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 concert inviting audiences to create their own music through graphic notation, which will be performed in the second half of the concert.
On Sunday, singers Guja Sandholt and Bryndís Guðjónsdóttir take audiences on a journey through music by female composers rarely heard in Iceland. The festival weekend closes with a celebration of the 100th anniversary of renowned Icelandic author Thor Vilhjálmsson, featuring premieres of new works by María Huld Markan and Haukur Tómasson, composed to Thor’s texts and performed by Kimi Ensemble.
Most of Seigla’s festival programme will take place within Norðurljós Chamber Hall, but we also present a family concert by Stundarómur in the open space Hörpuhorn. Like in previous years, Seigla will additionally hosts artist talks in Yoko’s Corner, and a festival opening celebration, and finally, a closing reception party open to all, where guests can raise a glass with, and get to know, the performers, the people behind the festival, and Seigla’s friends and sponsors.
Festival organisers
Svavarsson
Árnadóttir
Þorsteinsson