Dark Music Days is an Icelandic contemporary music festival that takes place annually in Reykjavík, Iceland. Held during some of the darkest days of winter, Dark Music Days provides the foremost platform for showcasing innovative and progressive contemporary music in Iceland.
This year's Dark Music Days will take place from 24 January until 29 January. The festival wants to encourage new projects to debut. The bold strategy has resulted in more new musical works premiering each year than at any other Icelandic cultural event. The festival celebrates the richness of contemporary music creation in Iceland and presents a variety of concerts and compositions in different styles by different composers.
One of the events wil be Mörsugur, an opera for voice and audiovisuals created from a poetic tale by Ragnheiður Erla Björnsdóttir. Located in folkloric Icelandic nature, the fragmented storytelling ventures on frequent detours on behalf of mythic-like heroines on which the narrator is built upon. The piece depicts the nuances of being in between worlds, of light and darkness, and memories and the present. Find the whole programme here.
A part of the festival will be the Workshop Young Reporters with Berlin based music journalist Julia Kaiser. The workshop is designed for people aged 16 and up and university students, for curious amateur listeners as well as for young professional musicians and journalists. It will include a Writers Hub - Room for reviews, interviews, reportage, impressions from backstage areas, photos, features; encounters with (inter)national artists as well as skill-sharpening workshops with music journalist Julia Kaiser. The Kick off workshop takes place on 24 January at Harpa Music Hall. Applications are still welcome until 21 January.
Founded in 1980 by the Society of Icelandic Composers, the festival focuses on premiering new and mostly experimental pieces that reflect the diversity and creativity of contemporary music. Dark Music Days in the Icelandic music community is both an eye opener for the general public and an incubator for innovation, collaboration and inspiration within the music community itself.
