Draft:Þorgerður Ingólfsdóttir

Thorgerdur Ingolfsdottir (born November 5, 1943) is an Icelandic choral conductor.

Biography

Born in Reykjavík, Iceland, Thorgerdur began her music studies at the age of seven. She completed her gymnasium studies at Menntaskólinn í Reykjavík in 1963, and a music teacher’s degree from the Reykjavík School of Music in 1965. In 1965–1967 she studied musicology and choral conducting at the master’s level at the University of Illinois, USA. She also studied in Austria and England, and took courses in theology at the University of Iceland. She was a teacher at the Reykjavík School of Music 1967–2000.

Thorgerdur is a pioneer in choral work with young people. She founded the Hamrahlid College Choir in 1967, and a choir of its graduates, the Hamrahlid Choir, in 1982. Under her direction, the two choirs have performed to great acclaim in Iceland and abroad. She has described her work as being not only about music, but about forming and educating young people in the widest sense. Nevertheless, she has maintained high standards of artistic excellence, repertoire, discipline, and perseverance. More than 2,500 Icelandic teenagers have come into contact with classical music through the Hamrahlid choral experience, including some of Iceland’s most renowned and respected musicians.

The Hamrahlid choirs have been very active in Icelandic society. They have performed countless concerts of various kinds throughout the island: formal concerts, school concerts, performances at hospitals and nursing homes, and participating in religious services. They have also performed many of the masterworks of the choral repertoire with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra, including Ravel’s Daphnis and Chloe, Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, J.S. Bach’s Magnificat and Mozart’s Requiem. Among the conductors the choir has worked with in collaboration with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra are Osmo Vänskä, Jean-Pierre Jacquillat, Tõnu Kaljuste, Eva Ollikainen, and Daníel Bjarnason.

With her choirs, Þorgerður has led the annual Walk for Peace in Reykjavík since 1979, and for decades they have visited hospitals and hospices during the Advent season. The Hamrahlid College Choir sang a televised Christmas Evensong with the Bishop of Iceland in 1974–1980. The choirs sang Christmas Evensong in Hallgrímskirkja in Reykjavík 1986–1999, and midnight mass at Reykjavík Cathedral with the Bishop of Iceland 2000–2017. Þorgerður conducted the Voices of Iceland, a youth choir consisting of 150 singers from all over Iceland, at the inaugural concert at Harpa Concert Hall in May 2011. She has also given concerts at the Reykjavík Dark Music Days Festival 12 times, starting in 1983.

Þorgerður’s 55-year career as choir conductor is unique. Under her direction, a choir of young students from a junior college in Iceland has become among the best in the world. Together they have given concerts in 23 countries and appeared at many of the world’s leading choir festivals:

• Europe: Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Great Britain, Ireland, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg, France, Spain, Hungary, Estonia.
• North America: Canada and the United States.
• Middle East: Israel.
• Asia: Japan, Philippines, China.

The Hamrahlid Choir has won many awards, including first prize for youth choirs (The President’s Prize) in the European Broadcasting Union’s competition, Let the Peoples Sing. In 1992 and 2007 the choir was nominated for the Nordic Council Music Prize. In 2002, the choir won the Icelandic Music Awards in the Performer of the Year category. At the Eighth World Symposium for Choral Music, in Copenhagen in 2008, the Hamrahlid Choir was one of 23 choirs from across the globe that was especially invited to participate.

The Hamrahlid Choir has throughout its history collaborated closely with Icelandic and foreign composers, as Þorgerður has demonstrated that new Icelandic choral works can be a realistic, enjoyable, and artistically fulfilling enterprise. Many composers, Icelandic and foreign, have composed works especially for Þorgerður and her choirs, and the list now includes over 100 works. Also, over 40 arrangements have been made for her choirs, as well as many translations and original song texts.

Thorgerdur was Iceland’s delegate in Nomus (the Nordic Music Committee) from 2001–2007 and music consultant of Europa Cantat 2003–2009. Thorgerdur has been a member of the World Choir Council since 2004. She has been a lecturer and an adjudicator in several music competitions and festivals in Europe. In the year 2000 she was the principal conductor of the Voices of Europe, a multi-national youth choir made up of singers from each of that year’s nine European Cities of Culture. For that occasion, the Estonian composer Arvo Pärt composed his work ...which was the son of..., which is dedicated to her.

Recordings

Under Þorgerður’s direction, the Hamrahlíð Choirs have made many recordings for television and radio, both in Iceland and abroad. They have also released three LP records and 10 CDs. Their CD Icelandic Folk Songs, released by the Iceland Music Information Center in 1993, was a gold record in Iceland, and Iceland Spring Poem, released in 2002, received the Icelandic Music Award as Classical Album of the Year. Many of the choir’s CDs have received outstanding reviews in Gramophone and other leading publications.

The Hamrahlid Choir, under Þorgerður’s direction, sang on Björk’s album, Utopia, released in 2017. The choir also performed at her concert series, Cornucopia, at The Shed, New York City, in May 2019, and later that year in various European cities. The CD Come and Be Joyful, released in December 2020, contains Icelandic choral music that was part of their contribution to the Cornucopia concerts.

Discography

• Ljós og hljómar (Light and Harmonies, LP, 1978)
• Öld hraðans (The Age of Speed, LP, 1982)
• Haustmyndir (Autumn Pictures, LP, 1985)
• Kveðið í bjargi (Invocation from the Rock, CD, 1988)
• Turtildúfan, jarðarberið og úlfaldalestin (The Turtle Dove, the Strawberry, and the Camel Train, CD, 1990)
• Íslensk þjóðlög (Icelandic Folk Songs, CD, 1993)
• Íslenskir jólasöngvar og Maríukvæði (Icelandic Christmas Songs and Hymns to the Virgin, CD, 1996)
• Vorkvæði um Ísland (Iceland Spring Poem, CD, 2002)
• Þorkell (Music by Þorkell Sigurbjörnsson, CD, 2008)
• Jólasagan (The Christmas Story, CD, 2009)
• Djúpsins ró (Calm of the Deep, CD, 2013)
• Come and Be Joyful (CD, 2020)
• Gleðileg jól! Jólalög Ríkisútvarpsins (The National Radio Christmas Compositions, 2021)
• Other recordings include:
• Mansöngur (Jórunn Viðar: Ólafs ríma Grænlendings), 2002
• Björk: Utopia, 2017
• Björk: Fossora, 2022

Awards

Thorgerdur has received many prizes and awards, among them from Leonie Sonnings Music Fund in 1975 and the Prize of Optimism for outstanding Icelandic artists from Brøste in Copenhagen in 1983. In 1992 the Icelandic Performing Rights Society (STEF) granted her special recognition for the performance of Icelandic choral music. In 2008 she was made an honorary member of the Society of Icelandic Musicians and in 2012 she was appointed Reykjavík City’s Honorary Artist. In 2013 she received the Honorary Award of the Icelandic Music Awards, and in 2016 she was presented with a Special Recognition Award from the University of Iceland’s School of Education, for her outstanding achievement as teacher. In 2018 Thorgerdur was awarded honorary citizenship of the City of Reykjavík, and in the same year the Icelandic parliament appointed her Honorary State Artist for life. She was awarded the Order of the Knight of the Falcon by the President of Iceland in 1985 for her pioneering musical work in Iceland, and the King of Norway appointed her a Commander of the Royal Order of Merit in 1992. In 2021, she was nominated for the Nordic Council Music Prize.