Aton – Icelandic New Music Ensemble
www.aton-ensemble.tk
performing at 21 Grand on Thursday the 6th of April ($ 6-10 sliding scale)
&
Mills College concert hall on sunday 9th of April
Each concert will have different programs and they will both start at 8pm.
In the tight, close-knit music community of Iceland lives a peculiar ensemble named Aton. They attract a peculiar crowd. After hearing plinks & plonks, exploding balloons, fire alarms, cell phones and other strange chamber music for various combinations the relatively large audience explodes into frantic applause, people standing up and screaming.
The members of the ensemble represent the whole spectrum of the Icelandic music scene. Their names are seen on various albums and if you have a good memory for faces, you might even have seen them on stage with now internationally recognized rock bands such as múm and Sigur Rós.
Most of the composers that write for the ensemble are part of a radical new generation of Icelandic composers. Some of those are also in the ensemble. The ensemble was founded in 1998, and soon Berglind Maria Tomasdottir flautist and trumpet player/composer Aki Asgeirsson became the leading force in the ensemble. It seems that Berglind's face and name pops up everywhere in the Icelandic music world, even though she mainly focuses on performing contemporary music. Her voice is also heard on the national radio when she has her radio show about new music. Aki Asgeirsson is also a hyperactive person in the music scene of the island. He is a threat to the small Icelandic music establishment, an enfant terrible and a spokesman of the new generation of Icelandic composers. He's now writing one piece a month until he becomes 60 years old (and solders more electric components to his trumpet). Having had his music been performed in all the Nordic countries, Germany, the Netherlands and former Soviet countries, Aki's reputation as a composer has been expanding.
Amongst other projects that have recently happened surrounding these group of people was a performance of 120 musicians performing a piece by Pall Ivan Palsson who is the electric bass player of the ensemble. The project was assisted by other members of the ensemble. The groups greatest challenge nowadays is keeping its promising members in the same place. As an example, percussionist Oli Bjorn Olafsson spends most of the year touring all over the place with musicians such as Emiliana Torrini, Storsveit Nix Noltes and múm.
However in early April none of those people will be at their home in Iceland because they will be performing in the US. On Thursday the 6th of april they will be appearing in 21 Grand and on Sunday the 9th they will be playing in the Mills College concert hall. Each of these concerts will have a different program. They will also be performing in Stanford University on the 10th.
Amongst the composers the ensemble will be performing are:
Aki Asgeirsson (bjarmaland.net)
Atli Heimir Sveinsson
Ulfar Ingi Haraldsson
Kolbeinn Einarsson
Anna Thorvaldsdottir
Rikhardur Orn Fridriksson
Ingi Gardar Erlendsson
Olafur Bjorn Olafsson
Pall Ivan Palsson
Steini Gunnarsson
Cost: $6-10 sliding scale