Sheep Music / Sauðatónar / Seyðatónar

A tour of concerts for sheep and humans

What kind of music might sheep like to hear? This question propelled the sound research of three musicians, Hafdís Bjarnadóttir and Passepartout Duo (Nicoletta Favari & Christopher Salvito), who have spent the last few months visiting farms, performing for sheep, and recording them. The results of these visits will be premiered at the Reykjavík Fringe Festival and performed at subsequent concerts around Iceland and the Faroe Islands in July. Sheep will often be present at the concerts, welcomed to interact with the musicians and the audience.

Events in Sheep Music will be a contemporary realization of the old Icelandic "kvöldvaka", long evening wakes where families would gather in a room to entertain themselves. The rituals of kvöldvaka are known to multiple cultures across latitudes, for example in Northern Italy they were called “filò”. The social role of such gatherings not only allowed the flourishing of artistic crafts like knitting, but also made space to nurture a sense of community and the relationships between different age groups, with the children being entertained and the older people having space to pass on stories and experiences; It often allowed the connection with nearby animals as well. This is sometimes referred to in Iceland as “baðstofustemmning”, when people knit together while one of them reads out loud or recites poetry to the others.

With an opening concert at the Reykjavík Fringe, and a subsequent tour across Iceland, the Faroe Islands, and Italy, the three musicians will create musical events for and with sheep at local farms, and at other locations brought together by wool and knitting culture, with the hope of putting a spotlight on local communities, and sustainable lifestyles. Transport between the concerts will be done reducing the carbon footprint to the minimum.

ABOUT HAFDÍS BJARNADÓTTIR

A native of Reykjavík, Iceland, Hafdís Bjarnadóttir started playing electric guitar at the age of 12. She was soon performing in bands and writing her own music, with an initial focus on rock and folk. In 2002, she graduated in jazz guitar performance from the FÍH School of Music. Keen to develop her compositional voice, she earned a bachelor’s degree in contemporary composition from the Iceland Academy of the Arts in 2007 and a master’s degree from the Royal Danish Academy of Music in 2009.

With a reputation for breaking down barriers between different genres of music, her past projects include a sound installation for the Nordic Lighthouse at the 2010 World Expo in Shanghai; an orchestral piece based on knitting instructions; two solo albums mixing different genres and instruments from different traditions; an ensemble piece based on financial graphs and charts from Iceland’s 2008 banking crisis; various commissioned pieces for solo instruments or chamber ensembles; and a piece for a mixed choir and electric guitar. Her second solo album, JÆJA, received critical acclaim and was nominated for the 2009 Iceland Music Awards.

Her piece for accordion and halldorophone, “A Day in February”, was nominated by the Icelandic National Broadcasting Service for the 58th International Rostrum of Composers in Vienna in 2011. She lives and works in Reykjavík.

ABOUT PASSEPARTOUT DUO

Passepartout Duo is a music group comprised of pianist Nicoletta Favari and percussionist Christopher Salvito. Making music that escapes categorization, the duo’s ongoing travel around the world informs the multi-disciplinary collaborations, instrumental compositions, and evocative music videos that constitute their body of work. The musical events they create focus on reconsidering the modalities in which people listen to and connect with music, and are cast from a wide range of aesthetics and disciplines.

The ensemble has performed at prominent music festivals like the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival (UK), the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival (US), and the Festival de La Habana de Música Contemporánea (CU). The duo was also awarded an ensemble fellowship at Eighth Blackbird’s inaugural Creative Lab in 2017.