What is electronic music? What are it’s origins in Iceland and where is it headed? On Wednesday, October 9th at 8:00 PM, a symposium on electronic music in Iceland will be held at Ásmundarsalur. There, Bjarki Sveinbjörnsson, a doctor in the history of music in Iceland, will give a talk on the beginnings of electronic music in the country, and Thor Magnusson, a research professor in the future of music, will discuss electronic music in relation to artificial intelligence and more.

In addition to the talks, the rarely heard piece DÁIK (The Day Before Ingólfur Arrived) for clarinet, cello, and ARP 2600 synthesizer by Þorkell Sigurbjörnsson will be performed. Þórdís Gerður will play the cello, Magnús Jóhann Ragnarsson ARP 2600, and Guðni Fransson the clarinet. Bjarki and Thor will then participate in a panel discussion with Biggi Veira from Gusgus and Salka Valsdóttir from Cyber and Reykjavíkurdætur. The event will be moderated by Atli Bollason.

Following the symposium, there will be a celebration marking the opening of the Þorkelsstofa website, which archives, preserves, and shares the work and life’s legacy of the composer Þorkell Sigurbjörnsson. An innovator in the field of electronic music in Iceland. Þorkell’s life’s work and body of compositions are an important part of Iceland’s music history and cultural heritage, with his catalog including over 300 musical pieces, the most famous being the choral piece Heyr, himna smiður.

The symposium "Electronic Music? Iceland?" is a free event offered by the State of the Art festival, held in Reykjavík from October 8th to 13th at Ásmundarsalur. Admission is first come, first served until the venue reaches capacity. The panel and discussions will be in Icelandic. 

Bjarki Sveinbjörnsson formerly worked as a music teacher, but after completing his PhD in 1998 on music in Iceland during the 20th century, with a focus on the origins and development of electronic music between 1960 and 1990, he has primarily worked in academia.

Thor Magnusson is a research professor at the University of Iceland and the University of Sussex, as well as a visiting professor at Technische Universität Berlin. His research interests include music performance, improvisation, new technologies in musical expression, live coding, notation, artificial intelligence, and digital creativity. He is also the author of the books Sonic Writing: Technologies of Material, Symbolic and Signal Inscription and Live Coding: A User's Manual.