Composer Anna Thorvaldsdottir Allures Listeners with Otherworldly Orchestras

Did you experience any obstacles on your path to becoming a professional composer? If so, how did you overcome them and realize your vision?

Thorvaldsdottir: There are always obstacles in life, and one’s career path is no exemption to that. What has helped me most is the deep need to write music, to just work hard and keep writing the music I need to write. Having a clear focus on what the aim is with making art and music always really helps, whatever the challenge. I have also always strived to keep my vision and integrity with respect to my own musical voice, which I really believe is one of the keys to being a professional artist.

Tell us about the world premiere of your new orchestra work, METAXIS. How is the audience invited to become immersed?

Thorvaldsdottir: In METAXIS the orchestra plays the unified score together as one, as they would any other piece of music, but they are spread out, playing together into the open space. The audience can walk around within the musical landscape and experience how the various layers and materials move and come together—as if walking through an exhibition. Everyone can choose their perspective in their own ‘mix’ of the music, by for example choosing to be physically closer to selected instrumental groups. 

From a musical perspective, in addition to the work's purely artistic aspect, the idea is to give the audience an insight into certain distinctive core elements of the music. My own method and style of orchestration and progression is quite organically ‘holistic,’ in that it might at times not be obvious how all the different parts come together to make up the whole, for example.

I understand you provide comprehensive notes to performers. Do you feel that your compositions are strengthened by empowering the performers with more context? What are some examples of notes you have written for them?

Thorvaldsdottir: I often find it important and helpful to include some atmospheric indications for the performers so that they can quickly get a sense for the atmosphere of the music. This is different for each piece of course and takes various forms, whether it’s a short text in the preliminary pages or a single word above a certain phrase in the music. 

An example of indication from my scores:

When you see a long-sustained pitch, think of it as a flower that you need to carry in your hands and walk the distance on a thin rope without dropping it or falling. It is a way of measuring time and noticing the tiny changes that happen as you walk further along the same thin rope. Absolute tranquility with the necessary amount of concentration needed to perform the task.

It's fascinating how you can “hear textures” and you talk about “visual music.” Is this a methodology that you have actively adopted and honed over time, or is it something innate that you naturally channel?

Thorvaldsdottir: It’s a mix of both. The music that I hear internally, when making music, creates a physical effect within me—it becomes tangible in my body and everywhere around me. This is how I find my music, find what is ‘right’ for each part of each piece. The connection to ‘visualization’ is a tool I use at the earliest stages of working on a piece; it is not about translating what I see into music but rather the other way around. I sketch the sounds that I'm hearing internally as a mnemonic device to remember, as it takes a long time to write out a big piece of music.

How do you feel about being selected for the 2024 Chanel Next Prize? 

Thorvaldsdottir: It is such an honor, and also really wonderful to get to know the other artists that have received the prize. And the award – not least the wide-ranging recognition of artistic diversity – shows really ambitious support for the arts into the future, which is wonderful to see. 

Do you have your own philosophy of music? A set of beliefs about what music is, what it can be, and the relationship between sounds?

Thorvaldsdottir: I believe in being sincere and allowing your internal musical passion to come to life—to bring what it is that you as an artist have to say. In my own music that often involves certain kinds of relationships between materials, as I tend to combine sounds, textures and nuances with lyricism, sometimes ethereal or enigmatic lyricism, but also sometimes in a much more concrete way.

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