Páll Ragnar Pálsson
*25 July 1977
Works by Páll Ragnar Pálsson
Biography
Páll Ragnar Pálsson (born 1977) is an Icelandic composer. He holds a PhD in music from Estonian Academy of the Arts (2014) but lives in Reykjavík since graduation. Páll has worked with most contemporary music collectives in Iceland and establishes new collaborations with artists all over the world every year that passes. He has released two albums, Nostalgia and Atonement, with his own music and had works published on compilations along others. He has participated at the International Rostrum of Composers twice, once on behalf of Estonia (2013) and Iceland (2018) where he won the first prize for Quake, a concerto for cello and orchestra.
Páll‘s works have been selected composition of the year twice by the Icelandic Music Awards. In later years, Páll has widened his profile in the direction of film scores and his first work, music for the film Quake (2022), a collaboration with Edvarð Egilsson, was nominated both for Nordic Music Film Awards and Edda, the Icelandic Film Awards.
Páll Ragnar has worked with:
soloists such as Martin Kuuskmann, Saeunn Thorsteinsdottir
conductors such as Daniel Bjarnason, Olari Elts, Ilan Volkov, Rumon Gamba and Risto Joost.
orchestras such as Icelandic Symphony Orchestra, Estonian National Symphony Orchestra, BBC orchestra, Seattle Symphony Orchestra, LA Phil
and NDR chamber orchestra.
His music has been played in halls such as Harpa in Reykjavík, Berlin Philharmonie, Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, Walt Disney Hall in LA and Maide Vale Studios in London.
Páll has an active collaboration going on with the US indie label Sono Luminus.
About the music
Páll Ragnar grew up into Reykjavík indie rock scene, but turned to academic composition in his late twenties. After finishing a BA degree in composing from Iceland Academy of the Arts in 2007, he headed East to Tallinn, Estonia and came back with a master‘s and doctoral degree seven years later. Páll‘s mentor and highest influence at the time was professor Helena Tulve, one of Estonia‘s leading composer. Over time she introduced to Páll her own wild range of inspirations from the Middle-East and Gregorian chant to spectralism. While working on his doctoral thesis under the guidance of prof Urve Lippus, a highly acclaimed musicologist, her theory of linear thinking in music as an approach to Estonian runic song supported Páll as an emerging composer. These personal influences combined with the vivid, high-level music life of Tallinn, both in terms of Western music and Slavic, spiritual and secular, plus the culture that formed in very unusual cultural circumstances in conditions of isolation and ideological pressure, had an enormous developmental input in Páll‘s artistic formation. Those influences affect his approach to musical ideas and expression, orchestration and sound. Combined with the environment of Scandinavian (post)modernism, a more obvious and natural background, these elements make Páll Ragnar Pálsson one of the most noteworthy composers of his generation.
Páll Ragnar has written for a range of instruments, but his favourite instrument is the symphony orchestra with its countless opportunities in terms of dynamics and colour. He is very fluent in the usage of each instrument to the maximum and often receives appraisal from orchestra players addressing this capability. Although carefully crafted in terms of overtones and clusters, the tonal language flows organically, with strong internal movement, and is more accessible to listening and playing than a glimpse on the written score might imply. Páll always works closely with instrumentalists and conductors both during the composing process, rehearsing and a final touch after performance to ensure that the work is solid and convincing in all aspects, but foremost, born in a trusting environment.
Páll searches for inspiration in geological structures and other national phenomena, but mostly in how the same patterns or energy appear in the human mind or society. There is an undertone of humility and awe in his music, by no means passive but with a strong sense of responsibility towards nature and the humanity, readiness to point out concerns and act purposefully and with conviction after quiet observation.
The Quake adventure
The series of events Páll likes to call „the Quake adventure“ started with a joint commission for the LA Phil New Music Ensemble and the NDR Symphony Orchestra operating in the newly-opened Elbphilharmonie in 2017. In both places, there was held a Festival dedicated to Icelandic Music, greatly under the initiative of conductor Daníel Bjarnason. As an inspiration it seemed appropriate to use a description from a book by Icelandic author Auður Jónsdóttir called Quake. The piece was later recorded by the Icelandic Symphony Orchestra and released along with other Icelandic contemporary authors on a Sono Luminus album Concurrence, which was nominated to the Grammy awards for best orchestral performance in 2019. The Icelandic National Broadcasting Service chose a concert recording of Quake to represent Iceland at the International Rostrum of Composers in Budapest, 2018. There it was selected by the delegates as most outstanding, making Páll the first Icelander to receive this recognition. As an award, Radio France offered to commision a new chamber piece from Páll to be premiered in a program dedicated to new music. In early 2023 the idea finally materialised in a recording of Lamenta by Ensemble Multilatérale.
