Maximus Musicus and the Icelandic Symphony Orchestra
The annual ‘Culture Night‘ was celebrated today in Reykjavik. It’s now the third ‘party’ of the summer, after Independance Day and Gay Pride. The ‘Culture Night’ involves closing off downtown from cars for an entire day (also because there is a marathon held that same day, plus lots of shorter races) and then there are ‘cultural’ things going on all day long, which culminate in three big concerts in various temporary outdoor venues.
As a part of bringing culture to the masses, the Icelandic Symphony Orchestra invited parents and their kids to see a show with them and Maximus Musicus in the new music hall, Harpa. There they retell/act the story of a little mouse who seeks warmth inside a house which turns out to be a concert hall. The story then recounts how the symphony members pick up their instruments one by one, then the whole band practices Bolero by Ravel and then later on the symphony members appear in full dress clothes for a proper concert.
All this is done with a narrator, and full physical participation from both the players and the conductor, and it was really quite special. I may have been a little more ‘tender’ than usual with a fresh cold, but I teared up over Bolero and swore I’d have to go to a proper concert some time without a four year old sitting on my knee, asking when the mouse would appear. 🙂
Anyway, a few pictures from the day:
Anna and Bjarki in front of the new Harpa. We were lucky enough that a friend offered to be there early to get us some free tickets, and we got really great seats! 🙂
Inside, drinking juice while waiting for the stairs to open to the second floor. Apparently there was a big harp-event upstairs, where the Culture Night was officially declared ON by the mayor - who then walked right past us on his way out a little later.
Good use of labor: People walking around with signs saying "Hljóð" or "Silence". Ironically, the word "hljóð" also means "sound". If it hadn't been for the English translation, this could have been an art installation of people calling attention to there being sound in general... 🙂
A mouse and a symphony orchestra in their day-clothes.
I was happy we weren't any closer, because a fanfare they played with only drums and horns was very loud!
Time to leave and walk to the main-downtown...
... but first Bjarki absolutely HAD to walk on some rocks. I decided not to argue.
Clambering on one of our national independence heroes, while looking at the crowd of people. The weather was just brilliant! 🙂
That's a funky bicycle! 🙂 To bad it's not functional any more...
Waiting at the Hlemmur bus-stop. There was a really fun band playing there and I wish I knew their name...
After a short bus-ride to reunite with Finnur we made a quick rest-stop at Finnur’s parents’ place, before heading to Agust’s 50th celebration party. After we arrived home close to 11pm we discovered that we could see the fireworks-extravaganza-show taking place downtown from our bedroom window! Excellent! 🙂
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