Anna Thorvaldsdottir

Born: 1977, Reykjavik, Iceland

ARCHORA

• Composed: 2022; commissioned by the BBC Proms and co-commissioned by the LA Philharmonic, Munich Philharmonic, Orchestre de Paris, Iceland Symphony Orchestra and Klangspuren Schwaz
  
• Premiere: August 2022 at the BBC Proms in Royal Albert Hall, London, Eva Ollikainen conducting the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra
  
• Instrumentation: 2 flutes, alto flute, 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 2 trombones, 2 tubas, bass drums, gongs, tam-tam, organ, strings. 
• CSO Notable Performances: These are the first CSO performances of ARCHORA
• Duration: approx. 19 minutes

Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s music is described as being composed as much by sounds and nuances as by harmonies and lyrical material — as an ecosystem of sounds, where materials continuously grow in and out of each other, often inspired in an important way by nature and its many qualities, in particular structural ones, like proportion and flow. 

Thorvaldsdottir’s orchestral writing has garnered her awards from the New York Philharmonic, Lincoln Center, the Nordic Council and the U.K.’s Ivors Academy. Her music is widely performed internationally and has been commissioned by many of the world’s leading orchestras, ensembles and arts organizations. 

Currently based in the London area, Thorvaldsdottir regularly teaches and gives presentations on composition, in academic settings, as part of residencies and in private lessons. Thorvaldsdottir was Composer-in-Residence with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra 2018–2023 and in residence at the Aldeburgh Festival and the Tanglewood Festival of Contemporary Music in 2023. In 2024–25, she was the Tonhalle Orchestra’s Creative Chair. She holds a Ph.D. (2011) from the University of California in San Diego. annathorvalds.com

Thorvaldsdóttir describes ARCHORA as follows: 

“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.” 

ARCHORA is featured on Anna’s latest orchestral portrait album, performed by the Iceland Symphony Orchestra and Eva Ollikainen.