Halla Steinunn

#leggjumviðhlustir (2021-22)

The #leggjumviðhlustir (meaning: #listenwell) course was created for the 7th graders of Borgaskóli in Reykjavík and held in the school building and its surroundings. The work was driven forward by questions such as "How do we listen?" and "What do we listen to?". Through the course the students learned to use recording equipment and headed for field recordings and the project culminated in a performance, with the chamber group Nordic Affect at the Reykjavík City Library in Grafarvogur as part of Reykjavík City's Children's Culture Festival. Poet Angela Rawlings was a consultant of the project, which was supported by Reykjavík City and the Icelandic Ministry of Culture’s Music Fund.

Mylla (2022)

Mylla is a stage production that addresses our emotional, economic and vital relationship with the earth and how it is changing. The work was aired June 2-4 at Fulltofta Gård, Sweden and united Liv Kastrup Vesterskov (idea, direction), Halla Steinunn Stefánsdóttir (sound design, composition), Gylleboverket (scenography), Adam Knapasjö (dramaturgy), Jonas Jönsson (sound technician) and improvisers Ida Lundén, Johannes Nästesjö and Nguyen Thanh Thuy.
Supported by Musikverket, Kulturrådet, Region Skåne, the Inter Arts Center and Hörby commune.

Duration: 1 hour

Strengur – the album (forthcoming)

An album project set to be released by Carrier Records on August 26. Five Groups of Three Collaborative Pieces, written and Performed with Halla Lovísa Loftsdóttir, Davíð Brynjar Franzson, Lương Huệ Trinh, Kent Olofsson, and Mirjam Tally.

Work in progress – album

Spherical White with Diamond (2020)

A site-respondent work titled 'Spherical White with Diamond', commissioned by Curated Place (UK) for 'NATUR-North Atlantic Tales' in collaboration with the National Trust (UK). Premiere has been moved to 2022 due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Site-specific work

Duration: variable

Fjärilarna steg upp (2020)

‘Fjärilarna steg upp’ [The butterflies ascended] is a sound installation of 8 mono channels, specially created for the tropical palm house at the greenhouse of The Botanical Garden in Lund, Sweden.

Voices and improvisers in the work are Sofia Härdig, Liv Kaastrup Vesterskov and Felicia Konrad.
Field recordings and activations on Härnäset were conducted in the company of Gunnar D. Hansson, Anders Hultqvist and Stefan Östersjö.
All the text in the work is extracted from Tapeshavet by Gunnar D. Hansson

Audio installation

Duration: variable

An Urban Archive as an English Garden (Franzson, 2019)

A collaboration with composer Davíð Brynjar Franzson on An Urban Archive as an English Garden. The work was developed at IRCAM (FR) AND ZKM (DE) and later premiered at the SPOR festival (DK).

An Urban Archive as an English Garden is an installation–based performance. It is presented as a grid of speakers covering as much of the available performance space as possible. From the speakers you hear field–recordings taken at various times at a single location, spatialized to represent the relative location of sounds as they were captured. Occasionally, a performer steps in and performs against this topography, ‘naming’ points of interest and mapping connections across space and time. The audience moves in– between and around the speakers and the performer.

strengur (2019)

strengur
from northwest
score based on a site-specific performance - 55.5299° N, 12.9341° E
strengur* was premiered at Interference in Malmö, Sweden in May 2019 by Akio Suzuki, Halla Steinunn Stefánsdóttir, Nguyen Thanh Thuy and Stefan Östersjö.

Graphic score
Duration: variable

*strengur is the Icelandic word for string but can also refer to a wind direction

the cartographer

A woman sits by a window and constructs a new cartography of the world. A cartography of touch, rupture and reaching. ‘The cartographer’ was developed at Inter Arts Center in Malmö, Sweden by Liv Kaastrup Vesterskov (DK) and Halla Steinunn Stefánsdóttir (IS). Through a laboratory like approach, where the initial spark came from a field recording trip to the south coast of Sweden, Liv and Halla Steinunn have created a space where music and theatre collide in a work about micro worlds, sensing and cartography.

Length: 45 minutes

Medium: Live performance (violin, voices), electronics, video projection.

I play Northern Lights (2017)

‘I Play Northern Lights’, created for Nordic Affect’s concert at the 2017 edition of Dark Music Days (IS), is a surround sound installation in two movements. The sounds were recorded in the company of Angela Rawlings as we navigated through the dimmed Northern Lights Hall in Reykjavík on one of the first days of 2017. The work was later composed at Lund University’s Inter Arts Center in Malmö, Sweden; to be sent back into space. ‘I play Northern Lights’ connects to a larger body of works that explore movement, listening and navigation and is the first work within my ‘Activation series’.

Kairos (2017)

Stereo work premiered at Skálholt Summer Concerts, 2017.

Duration: 05:19

Program notes:

Kairos
Sonic weaving. Past shot through the present

Material/Performers: Halla Lovísa Loftsdóttir, voice*, Nguyễn Thanh Thủy, dan tranh, Halla Steinunn Stefánsdóttir, voice, field recording, violin

*Special thanks to The Ísmús web and The Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies for clearing the rights for Hallfreður Örn Eiríksson’s recording of the composer’s great-grandmother, poet Halla Lovísa Loftsdóttir. The vocal fragment is an oral tradition sung to Hallgrímur Pétursson’s Passion Hymns.

V A R P (2016)

16 channel audio and video installation. Premiered at Connect festival, Malmö, Sweden. V A R P, was developed at Lund University’s Inter Arts Center. The installation’s audio is co-authored by Halla Steinunn Stefánsdóttir with producer and composer Valgeir Sigurðsson as it is based on stems from the collaborative project Raindamage, which explored some of the creative possibilities and processes involved in the making of an album.

Duration: variable

Fragment from program notes:
‘I wanted the installation room V A R P to build on an experimental approach where material and method is combined, resulting in a new work. V A R P is thus an exploration of a changing work paradigm and development of the musician’s changing self: an exploration of the ecology of today’s artistic work.’ (Stefánsdóttir, 2016)

S C A P E (2016)

S C A P E is a piece of video art with live performance of music with pre-recorded sounds created by Sigurður Guðjónsson (video/pre-recorded sounds/concept), Halla Steinunn Stefánsdóttir (concept/work score) and ensemble Nordic Affect (performers). S C A P E was premiered as part of EnsembleORCHESTRA, a four-hour final event of Nordic Music Days, 2016 edition.

Duration: 10:40

Program notes:

A collaboration of the tacit, balancing between the prior and the new; a navigation between – scapes.