Hilary Finch, The Times (UK):
“The most impressive was Gangverk englanna (Angelic Mechanisms), by the 36-year-old Gunnar Andreas Kristinsson: a slow rise from darkness to light, as a two-note motif oscillates into a dark dance with pounding momentum, and through minimalist stasis into ever self-generating and compressed energies. The cunningly structured score is spangled with harp, tubular bells and pitched percussion. The composer’s fresh and bold imagination also revealed itself in Harpa’s smaller, ice-blue hall, Norðurljós, in the premiere of a work written for the Reykjavik Wind Ensemble and the Schola Cantorum Chamber Choir. Four settings of sayings by Heraclitus (Fjogur brot eftir Herakleitos) were strong, spare and monosyllabic, with something of the hieratic strength of Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex.”
04.02.13
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/arts/music/classical/article3677569.ece (Subscription needed)
Gunnar Andreas Kristinsson 