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The Embassy of Iceland Invited to Summer Concert

June 24th, 2014
Concert at Icelandic Embassy.jpg

News from Berlin - Situated at the edge of the Tiergarten is the Nordic Embassy is a building dedicated to housing the various diplomatic missions from both Scandinavia and Iceland. It is here that a concert celebrating Icelandic culture was staged on June 23rd.

However the three musicians, Selma Guomundsdottir on the Piano alongside the two flautists Guoron Birgisdottir and Martial Nardeau did not seem content to simply explore the musical offerings of a single culture. Rather, the trio opened with a series of pieces from across Europe, starting with Bach and Schubert before moving to the English 19th century composer John Clinton.

Following these performances, the focus of the music shifted finally towards Iceland. It was explained that a number of the pieces performed were arranged from the folk songs and chants sung by residents of Iceland’s Eastern Fjords and thus formed a unique synthesis of an Icelandic musical tradition centuries old and the relatively modern art of orchestral composition.

With the theme of history freshly established, further pieces began to elaborate upon Iceland’s past from excerpts of romances set under Danish occupation to the works of the famous Doppler brothers, Karl and Franz who toured Europe throughout the 19th century.

In many ways this event can be seen to provide a perfect example of cultural diplomacy with its pan-European scope that still managed to effectively educate and enlighten the listener to the specific nuances and history of the Icelandic classical tradition.

News from Berlin – Berlin Global