A fusion of music and movement | Thorvaldsottir’s AIŌN premieres in Gothenburg
22nd May 2019
A fusion of music and movement, AIŌN by Anna Thorvaldsottir receives its world premiere at Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra’s inaugural Point Music Festival on May 24. Bringing together musicians and dancers on a single stage, the piece is arguably the composer’s most ambitious orchestral score to date.The premiere performance has been realised in collaboration with Erna Ómarsdóttir of Iceland Dance Company who has created choreography to physically embody Thorvaldsdottir’s score. Dancers from the company will share the concert stage with Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra conducted by Anna-Maria Helsing.
Comprising three movements which run continuously over the work’s 45-minute duration, Thorvaldsdottir invites the listener to become completely immersed in a sonic landscape of ever-changing perspectives beneath which powerful forces appear to be at play, bending perception of time and space. 'AIŌN is inspired by the abstract metaphor of being able to move freely in time,' she says, 'of being able to explore time as a place/space that you inhabit rather than experiencing it as a one-directional journey through a single dimension.'
AIŌN has been co-commissioned by Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra and Iceland Symphony Orchestra which will perform the work in its 19/20 season.
In addition to the premiere of AIŌN, in the coming months performances of Thorvaldsdottir’s music will take place at Spoleto Festival, Aspen Music Festival and at the BBC Proms and will feature in the 19/20 seasons of the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Boston Symphony Orchestra among others. She has recently completed a new work for the Spektral Quartet which will receive its premiere in Chicago in October 2019.
See performance calendar
Photo: © Haraldur Jónasson
