Bjarni Frímann Bjarnason

A conductor who studied the violin with Lilja Hjaltadóttir and Guðný Guðmundsdóttir and took his viola diploma from Listaháskóli Íslands, the Iceland University of the Arts. In 2009 he won the soloists' competition the school runs with the Iceland Symphony and went on to play Bartók's viola concerto with the orchestra, and he then studied conducting with Fred Buttkewitz at the Hanns Eisler academy in Berlin. He has conducted most of the orchestras in Iceland and has appeared widely as a string and keyboard player, accompanying singers at the piano and playing chamber music at the Berlin Philharmonie and the Konzerthaus in Vienna among other places, and he has written music for the theatre and for film. He has been music director of the Icelandic Opera since 2017 and took the post of resident conductor of the Iceland Symphony in 2019. He has also conducted projects of Sinfóníuhljómsveit Norðurlands, the orchestra of the north, and travelled with Björk as her conductor on the Cornucopia tour.