Commissioned by BBC Radio 3, LA Philharmonic, Munich Philharmonic, Orchestre de Paris, Iceland Symphony Orchestra and Klangspuren Schwaz and first performed by the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Eva Ollikainen on 11 August 2022 at the Royal Albert Hall as part of BBC Proms 2022.

Performance note: The organ part is optional and is intended to be played only where a grand organ is available at the venue. It is not to be substituted by chamber organ or another keyboard instrument.

  • 2+afl.0.2+bcl.2+cbn/4.0.1+btbn.1+btba/3perc/[org]/str
  • 19 min
    • 22nd January 2025, Maison symphonique, Downtown Montreal, QC, Canada
    • 23rd January 2025, Maison symphonique, Downtown Montreal, QC, Canada
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Programme Note

The core inspiration behind ARCHORA centres around the notion of a primordial energy and the idea of an omnipresent parallel realm – a world both familiar and strange, static and transforming, nowhere and everywhere at the same time. The piece revolves around the extremes on the spectrum between the Primordia and its resulting afterglow – and the conflict between these elements that are nevertheless fundamentally one and the same. The halo emerges from the Primordia but they have both lost perspective and the connection to one another, experiencing themselves individually as opposing forces rather than one and the same.

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 Thorvaldsdottir, 2022

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Thorvaldsdottir: ARCHORA

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