Hildigunnur Halldórsdóttir

A violinist, born in 1966, who began music at eight at the music school in Garðabær and went on to Tónskóli Sigursveins D. Kristinssonar. She took her soloist's diploma at Tónlistarskólinn í Reykjavík in 1987, where her teachers were Guðný Guðmundsdóttir and Mark Reedman, and her master's at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester in 1992. That year she joined the Iceland Symphony as assistant principal second violin, a post she held for many years; she now plays in the first violins. She has played as a soloist with the Iceland Symphony and Kammersveit Reykjavíkur and in chamber music with Caput, Camerarctica and Contrasti, and she led the Icelandic Opera's orchestra in The Magic Flute at Gamla bíó and the Iceland Dance Company's in Coppélia at the Reykjavík City Theatre. On the baroque violin she plays in Bachsveitin í Skálholti, Camerata Drammatica, Reykjavík barokk and Symphonia angelica. She also took her final diploma in singing at Tónskóli Sigursveins in 2003, has sung with Hljómeyki and Schola cantorum, and sings today in Kór Breiðholtskirkju. With her colleagues in Camerarctica she has played all Bartók's string quartets and thirteen of Shostakovich's fifteen for the Reykjavik Chamber Music Society (Kammermúsíkklúbburinn).