A piece for eight Cellos, Tam Tam and Electronics. Composer: Georg K. Hilmarsson. Premiered at the Berkeley Art Museum L@te Concert - Dalalæða by UC Berkeley group Celli@Berkeley, 7. Oct 2014. 

Þú hrjúfa Fold (You Jagged Land)

A fixed media piece. Originally mixed for surround sound. Recordings of flute and trombone. Flute: Erica Oba Trombone: Peter Sloan. (2014) 

Can you hear my heart beating?

Premiered at Cycle Festival  15. august 2015 by The South Iceland Chamber Choir directed by Hilmar Orn Agnarsson. 

Program notes:
After my graduation from Mills College in 2015, I returned to Iceland for the summer.  The bright Icelandic summer light welcomed me in all its beauty. My eyes had gotten used to the Californian daylight,  more golden and dreamy than the Icelandic light. Icelandic daylight is colder, sharper, and somehow more clear.  My eyes needed time to adjust—it had never felt so bright, so colorful, so clear.  The Icelandic sunset and sunrise even have a completely different texture than in California. In Iceland the brightness projects  different colors on the landscape—the mountains in Iceland are blue, the mountains in California are gold.  Here, everything gets a sharper edge and different tone. These thoughts translated into ideas of difference in sound.  The color qualities of the human voice have always fascinated me, and in this piece I try to communicate different colors  and degrees of brightness. The Icelandic language has over one hundred words describing the brightness of daylight from dawn to dusk.  I used them as inspiration and but the piece is without words. Let the voices draw the pictures and shape the piece.

Recorded by Árni Möller for Cycle Festival 2015
http://www.cycle.is       

BIRTA (Brightness)

Live recording from the premiere at the concert Hljómskálin February 17th 2016 in Skálholt Cathedral, Iceland. Performed by the South Iceland Chamber Choir, conducted by Hilmar Örn Agnarsson. The poem is from the classic Chinese text Tao Te Ching in the Icelandic translation of Gunnar Dal.  

Recorded by Árni Möller

...sem er

Live recording from Skálholt Summer Concerts 2016, an annual music festival   in the Cathedral of South Iceland. Premiered by Nordic Affect (http://nordicaffect.com/).
Nordic Affect: 
Violin: Halla Steinunn Stefánsdóttir
Traverso: Georgia Brown
Cello: Hanna Loftsdóttir
Harpsichord: Guðrún Óskarsdóttir

Program notes: 

The Same Shadow is influenced by the painting “Summer Still (The Same Shadow)”, created by my friend, the artist John Zurier. The painting is on a linen canvas which gives it a deep and textured surface. The composition is my attempt to tap into the abstract visual realm and describe its emotional effect. I found it fitting to do so in connection with my work with Nordic Affect as I’ve had lengthy discussions with John Zurier about colors and their blending. He often uses pigments and traditional work methods, predating the baroque period, which he in turn uses to create new and abstract art. The title of the work is derived from the poem “Sumar Enn” by Stefán Hörður Grímsson.



   

The Same Shadow

Öndun performed by Cheng - Yu Wu

About the piece:

New music solo flute repertoire has become a kind of language. It has established a very distinct vocabulary that is a challenge
to steer away from. Sometimes the best way is to tackle the problems head on: don't question the language--speak it. Öndun is
looking at the solo performer from different perspectives, a gradual shift from being hyper present to becoming removed from
performance. If you look up the translation of the word öndun in an English/ Icelandic dictionary, the result is going to be
“breathing, respiration." However, in the Icelandic language is rich with lots of different colors and shades. Words can take on a
completely different meaning in a different context. Öndun is one of these words. For example, it can mean a short pause an old
meaning of the word is also “a beautiful death”, it is also derived from the word Andar, which means spirits or souls. Even the
artists constant search for inspiration is called “anda-gift”. The title came really late to this piece, but it was fitting in every color

Öndun

The English word regret has old Norwegian roots. It comes from the word gret, 
which means to weep or groan. In Icelandic the word is gráta.

Icelandic folklore is full of elves, trolls, and other creatures, and the Útburður are among them. 
They are the unwanted children, most often born out of wedlock, who have been left outside in the wilderness to die. The Útburður, whose name means literally "born out", are neither of the living or the dead, they have no status in the world or the world beyond. They have no place. 
The color of the rag in which they are wrapped when left outside becomes the color of their being. 
Often they haunt their mothers. In one tale, a Útburður appears to a young woman in a 
sheepfold and recites a poem: 

Mother mine, don´t weep, weep, 
As you milk the sheep, sheep;
I can lend my rags to you, 
So you'll go a-dancing too, 
You'll go a-dancing too. 

The mother went mad and never recovered. 

The legends tell us that the Útburður hardly ever speak, but they can be heard crying in the wind, 
and they howl before bad weather or before something bad happens.

Premiered by Tak Ensemble 
28 November 2018 @ Boston University,  
CFA Concert Hall.

(Re)gret

Stafur (2020)
for bass flute, alto saxophone, cello, percussion, participants, and spirits. 

Premiered in Tapei, Taiwan, January 2020 by
TimeArt Studio - New Music Ensemble.
https://www.timeartstudio.com/

Video of performance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gy6iC8NBpAY

Previous version of the piece, premiered in Boston 2019.
watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEnEayjsRvw&t=2s

Stafur

Georg K. Hilmarsson (b.1982) graduated from the Iceland Academy of the Arts in 2013 and proceeded his graduate studies at Mills College in California, working closely with renowned composers Fred Frith, Zeena Parkins, Roscoe Mitchell and John Bischoff. Georg graduated 2015 from Mills College with honors, were he was honored with the Paul Merrit Henry Prize for excellence in composition for stringed Instruments.

Georg’s pieces have been performed widely, Salisbury Arts Festival í England, Summer Dream Choir festival in Sweden, Center for Contemporary Music in San Francisco and the Berkley Art Museum. Georg’s pieces has span a variety of instrumentation and groups amongst those who have premiered his work are; Eclipse Quartet, Celli@Berkely, The Reykjavik Cathederal Choir and the South Iceland Chamber Choir.

Georg has been active in the Icelandic music scene as a bass player and songwriter, most notably with the band Sprengjuhollin. 


Georg K. Hilmarsson

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