Sounds Icelandic

Thorbjorg Daphne Hall is Program Director and Assistant Professor of Musicology in the Department of Music at the Iceland Academy of the Arts in Reykjavik. She is currently completing a PhD in Music at the University of Liverpool. She has published and presented conference papers internationally on Icelandic Music and the Iceland Airwaves music festival, and received an Icelandic music award in 2007 with the group Hjaltalin for their debut album Sleepdrunk Seasons, a band whose influences range from modern indie rock to 60's pop music to classical music. She is also a member of the Iceland Academy of the Arts. Professor Nicola Dibben is the author of Bjork (Equinox Press, 2009) and co-author of Music and Mind in Everyday Life (OUP 2010). Her research into music, mind and culture has also been published in over 40 book chapters and journal articles, presented at conferences worldwide, and featured in the international media. In 2012 she collaborated with Bjork, contributing to her ground-breaking multi-media project Biophilia - the first music album to be released as a suite of apps. Professor Dibben is editor of Empirical Musicology Review, a consulting editor to Musicae Scientiae, Music Perception, and the Journal of Interdisciplinary Music Studies, and she co-organised the 2009 international Conference on Interdisciplinary Musicology. Arni Heimir Ingolfsson holds a PhD in historical musicology from Harvard University (2003). He has held positions as Associate Professor of musicology at the Iceland Academy of the Arts and as Programme Director of the Iceland Symphony Orchestra. His primary area of interest is the transmission of music to and within Iceland during the 16th and 17th centuries. His CD recordings (with the Carmina Chamber Choir, which he founded) of music from Icelandic manuscripts have received outstanding reviews and various awards. He is the author of Jon Leifs: Lif i tonum (2009), a biography of Iceland's iconic national composer, also forthcoming in an English version as Jon Leifs and the Creation of Icelandic Music (Indiana University Press). He contributed to Bjork's Biophilia as writer and arranger of choir parts. Arni holds a research position at the Arni Magnusson Institute of Icelandic Studies, funded by the Icelandic Research Fund. He is currently Mellon Visiting Fellow at the Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies in Florence, Italy. Tony Mitchell is honorary research associate at the University of Technology, Sydney. He is the author of Dario Fo: People's Court Jester (London: Methuen: 1999), Popular Music and Local Identity: Pop, Rock and Rap in Europe and Oceania (University of Leicester Press: 1996) and the editor of Global Noise: Rap and Hip hop outside the USA (Wesleyan University Press: 2001). He co-edited Sounds of Then, Sounds of Now: Popular Music in Australia (Australian Clearing House for Youth Studies: 2008), North meets South: Popular Music in Aotearoa/New Zealand, (Perfect Beat: 1994), and Home, Land and Sea: Situating Popular Music in Aotearoa New Zealand (Auckland: Pearson Education: 2011). He has also published numerous articles on music and film in various countries, including Iceland, and writes reviews for the Australian magazines Music Forum and Cyclic Defrost.

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• 'Introduction - Sounds Icelandic' Þorbjorg Daphne Hall, Nicola Dibben, Arni Heimir Ingolfsson and Tony Mitchell Part 1: Histories and Contexts 1. 'A Nation without Music?': Symphonic Music and Nation-Building Kimberly Cannady, Victoria University of Wellington, and Kristin Loftsdottir, University of Iceland 2. Rimur: From National Heritage to Folk Music Ragnheiour Olafsdottir, Independent Scholar, and Nicola Dibben 3. Jon Leifs and the Origins of an Icelandic Style Arni Heimir Ingolfsson Part 2: Social and Spatial Structures 4. Spatiality, Sociality and Circulation: Popular Music Scenes in Reykjavik Nick Prior, University of Edinburgh 5. Beyond Reykjavik 101: Iceland's Popular Music Mainstream and the Eurovision Song Contest Sarah Baker, Griffith University 6. Nurturing the roots: Musiktilraunir, Iceland's foremost "Battle of the bands" competition Arnar Eggert Thoroddsen, University of Edinburgh Part 3: Scenes and Genres 7. 'Even Cute Babies Will Bite When Provoked': Icelandic Popular Music and the Rise of the Krutt >Þorbjorg Daphne Hall 8. A Transnational Bedroom Community in Reykjavik Tony Mitchell 9. Icelandic hip hop: From 'Selling American Fish to Icelanders' to ReykjavikurdAetur (Reykjavik Daughters) Tony Mitchell Part 4: Sound and Aesthetics 10. Surrealism in Icelandic Popular Music John Richardson, University of Turku 11. 'Imagine what my body would sound like': Embodiment, nature and sound in the work of Bjork Gudmundsdottir Sarah Boak, Independent Scholar 12. Triangulating Timbre in Sigur Ros's Iceland Brad Osborn, University of Kansas, and David Blake, University of Akron