AEQUA – ICE Performs Anna Thorvakdsdottir

As a performer plays a phrase, harmony, texture or a lyrical line it is being delivered to another performer as it transforms and develops, passed on to be carried through until it is passed on again to yet another. All materials continuously grow in and out of each other, growing and transforming throughout the piece. My music is often inspired in an important way by nature and its many qualities, but I do not strive to describe or literally incorporate elements from nature in my music.

To me, the qualities of the music are first and foremost musical — so when I am inspired by a particular element that I perceive in nature, it is because I perceive it as musically interesting. The qualities I tend to be inspired by are often structural, like proportion and flow, as well as relationships of balance between details within a larger structure, and how to move in perspective between the two — the details and the unity of the whole.

The pieces for smaller forces on AEQUA orbit the largest work Aequilibria, which is written for a chamber ensemble of 12 performers. Aequilibria was inspired by various states of balancing forces — by the natural breath between expansion and contraction, and the perspectives of translucence and opacity. This inspiration can be applied to the whole collection of pieces on AEQUA — the works breathe in and out of focus, expand and contract within their individual characters but reflect on each other through their various internal connections from beginning to end. Warmest thanks for listening. (Anna Thorvaldsdottir)