Gunnsteinn Ólafsson

A conductor and composer. He founded Sinfóníuhljómsveit unga fólksins, the Icelandic Youth Symphony Orchestra, in the autumn of 2004 and conducts it, and he also conducts Háskólakórinn, the University of Iceland's choir. His fairy-tale opera Baldursbrá (Marigold), to a libretto by Böðvar Guðmundsson, is written for four soloists, a children's choir and a chamber ensemble, and tells of a flower persuaded by a curlew to come up onto a ridge and see the sunset. The idea came in 1987 and a first version was finished in 1988, and he rewrote much of it in 2011. It was sung in concert in the summer of 2014, at the Siglufjörður Folk Music Festival and in Langholtskirkja, and staged in Norðurljós at Harpa in August 2015. A book of his songs for solo voice was published in 2023, and a book of twenty of his choral songs for mixed choir in 2025.