Relieved to be playing in front of a live crowd again after a 15 month concert hiatus, June 3rd at the Harpa Concert Hall.
It was truly wonderful to perform at the Harpa Concert Hall again after a long break from live performance due to Covid 19. We had a stage full of instruments and performed some of our new material that we have been working on during the pandemic, our variations and original compositions of traditional Icelandic material. What a crowd (albeit masked)!
UMBRA was commissioned to compose the official Christmas song of the National Public Radio in Iceland, a yearly tradition that began in 1987, where a new piece of christmas music by a prominent Icelandic composer/songwriter is premiered before the 12 o’clock news on Christmas Eve. The song is called “Himnablessun” (Heaven’s blessing) and the music is set to a poem by our good friend and writer Aðalsteinn Ásberg Sigurðsson. The song was recorded in Guðríðarkirkja by the National Radio’s Georg Magnússon.
Merry Christmas!
We collaborated with our good friends Línus Orri and Voces Thules to perform a collaborative version of an old Icelandic Yule song, Hátíð fer að höndum ein (A high time draws near).
It's a part of the IsFolk project of bringing forth Icelandic folk songs and showing the many beautiful aspects of our sometimes melancholic and sparse heritage. IsFolk is a newly founded association of artists and scholars in the field of folk music in Iceland.
Sound mixing by Stefán Örn Gunnlaugsson, video Editing by Guðmundur Atli Pétursson. Produced by IsFolk in 2020.
We are happy that despite the situation, we were able to work on some Christmas music with our good friend Matthias Hemstock on drums and percussion, and share the fruits of our labour and love using a new streaming platform of the University of Iceland. They invited us to perform a Christmas show for their audience, which was live and is ever accessible on their platform - see below. We wish you all the best during this holiday season!
Umbra á Háskólatónleikum by Háskóli Íslands on Livestream - Livestream.com
We’ve been laying low during the COVID epidemic like most people, using the time to do some quiet research for our newest album which we hope to record in the beginning of 2021 crossing fingers We are focusing entirely on Icelandic traditional songs and folk songs, of which sources are scarce.
In the meanwhile, we wish you the best and hope you all stay safe <3
