Anna Thorvaldsdottir: ARCHORA - AIŌN Iceland Symphony Orchestra & Eva Ollikainen

• Anna Thorvaldsdottir (b. 1977): ARCHORA:
• 1Thorvaldsdottir: ARCHORA20:51
• AIŌN I. Morphosis:
• 2Thorvaldsdottir: AIŌN I. Morphosis13:15
• AIŌN II. Transcension:
• 3Thorvaldsdottir: AIŌN II. Transcension16:48
• AIŌN III. Entropia:
• 4Thorvaldsdottir: AIŌN III. Entropia10:53
• Total Runtime01:01:47

Info for Anna Thorvaldsdottir: ARCHORA - AIŌN

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.

AIŌN is inspired by the abstract metaphor of being able to move freely in time, of being able to explore time as a space that you inhabit rather than experiencing it as a one-directional journey through a single dimension. Disorienting at first, you realize that time extends simultaneously in all directions and whenever you feel like it, you can access any moment. As you learn to control the journey, you find that the experience becomes different by taking different perspectives - you can see every moment at once, focus on just some of them, or go there to experience them. You are constantly zooming in and out, both in dimension and perspective. Some moments you want to visit more than others, noticing as you revisit the same moment, how your perception of it changes. This metaphor is connected to a number of broader background ideas in relation to the work: How we relate to our lives, to the ecosystem, and to our place in the broader scheme of things, and how at any given moment we are connected both to the past and to the future, not just of our own lives but across - and beyond - generations.

As with my music generally, the inspiration behind ARCHORA and AIŌN is not something I am trying to describe through the music or what the music is “about”, as such. Inspiration is a way to intuitively tap into parts of the core energy, structure, atmosphere and material of the music I am writing each time. It is a fuel for the musical ideas to come into existence, a tool to approach and work with the fundamental materials, the ideas and sensations, that provide and generate the initial spark to the music - the various sources of inspiration are ultimately effective because I perceive qualities in them that I find musically captivating. I do often spend quite a bit of time finding ways to articulate some of the important elements of the musical ideas or thoughts that play certain key roles in the origin of each piece but the music itself does not emerge from a verbal place, it emerges as a stream of consciousness that flows, is felt, sensed, shaped and then crafted. So inspiration is a part of the origin story of a piece, but in the end the music stands on its own. (Anna Thorvaldsdottir)

Iceland Symphony Orchestra
Eva Ollikainen, conductor

Eva Ollikainen
With her elegant, expressive body language, natural stage presence and infectious musicality, Eva Ollikainen is one of the leading conductors of our time. She has been Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of the Iceland Symphony Orchestra since 2020. Previously, she was Chief Conductor of the Nordic Chamber Orchestra.

Eva Ollikainen has appeared with orchestras such as the Wiener Symphoniker, DSO Berlin, Helsinki Philharmonic, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Royal Scottish National Orchestra and Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra. She has also conducted at the Semperoper Dresden, Royal Danish Opera, Gothenburg Opera, Kungliga Operan Stockholm and the Finnish National Opera.

Highlights of the 22/23 season include her debuts with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra in Walt Disney Concert Hall as well as the Hollywood Bowl, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre National de Belgique, and an extensive UK tour with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra and the BBC Philharmonic's centenary concert. Her debut at the 2022 Proms, which included the world premiere of Anna Thorvaldsdottir's ARCHORA, was hailed as a "performance of bold gestures and striking colours" by the Guardian.

A former student of Leif Segerstam and Jorma Panula at the Sibelius Academy, Eva Ollikainen won the Jorma Panula Conducting Competition at the age of 21. Today, the support of young musicians is close to her own heart. She teaches regularly at the Sibelius Academy and frequently leads master classes at institutions such as the Peabody Institute and the Royal Danish Academy of Music. She founded the Iceland Symphony Orchestra Conductors' Academy in 2021.

Booklet for Anna Thorvaldsdottir: ARCHORA - AIŌN