If the recorder makes you think of squeaky school music lessons, Lucie Horsch would love to change your mind. The Dutch player, born in Amsterdam in 1999, has built her career on showing what this small, humble instrument can really do. At the end of November she brings it to Reykjavík for two very different concerts at Harpa, the glass concert hall on the harbour.

Her hosts are the Iceland Symphony Orchestra and Barbara Hannigan, the Canadian soprano and conductor who became the orchestra's chief conductor and artistic director this season. It is her first post as a chief conductor, and this weekend shows both sides of her: the baton on Thursday, her voice on Saturday.

Thursday 26 November: a big night in Harpa's main hall

The orchestral concert is at 19:30 in Eldborg, Harpa's main hall. Horsch is the soloist in two pieces that could hardly be further apart: a Bach concerto in an arrangement for recorder by Frans Brüggen, the Dutch recorder player and conductor, and Whistles and Whispers from Uluru by the Estonian composer Erkki-Sven Tüür, in which, as the orchestra describes it, the birdsong of the Baltic meets the mystery of Australia's red sandstone mountain.

Around them, Hannigan conducts Bach's Ricercar a 6 in Anton Webern's orchestration, Stravinsky's Dumbarton Oaks and Prokofiev's bright, witty Classical Symphony. Expect about two hours, with an interval.

"Fearsome virtuosity and superb technique"

— BBC Music Magazine, on Lucie Horsch

Saturday 28 November: folk songs on a winter afternoon

Two days later the mood turns warmer and more intimate. Between Worlds is a chamber concert at 14:00 in Norðurljós, Harpa's smaller Northern Lights hall. Hannigan sings, Horsch plays and sings too, and they are joined by flautist Rafael Adobas Bayog and musicians from the orchestra. The music travels widely:

  • Luciano Berio's Folk Songs, sung by Hannigan
  • Bartók's Romanian Folk Dances and Hungarian folk songs
  • Piazzolla's Libertango
  • a Telemann double concerto for recorder and flute
  • Móðir mín í kví kví, a traditional Icelandic song, in Hannigan's own arrangement

Listen out for that last one. It comes from an old Icelandic ghost story: a young woman, milking the ewes in the fold, hears the ghost of the child she abandoned singing to her. It is a haunting little tune, and a lovely way to hear a piece of Icelandic folklore in the hall.

This kind of journey suits Horsch. Her 2022 album Origins explored folk-inspired music by composers including Bartók and Piazzolla. The concert lasts about 80 minutes without an interval, which leaves plenty of the evening for dinner in town.

Make a weekend of it

If you are staying on, the Reykjavik Chamber Music Society plays in the same hall on Sunday 29 November at 16:00, with music by Dohnányi, Hindemith and Richard Strauss, whose Piano Quartet he wrote when he was just twenty.

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