Daníel Bjarnason ICELAND

Daníel Bjarnason is one of Iceland’s foremost musical voices today, in demand as a conductor, composer and programmer. He is Artistic Advisor to the Iceland Symphony Orchestra, an appointment that follows his tenures as Principal Guest Conductor and Artist in Residence. Alongside commitments in Reykjavik, he collaborates with such orchestras as Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, Deutsches Symphonie Orchester Berlin, Toronto Symphony and Tokyo Symphony Orchestra.

Highlights from the previous season include the world premiere of Passion of the Common Man, a bold and confronting secular oratorio created with librettist Royce Vavrek, director Netia Jones, and sound designer Ida Schuften Juhl. The piece premiered at the Bregenzer Festspiele 2026, and was hailed as “a masterpiece” (MusicPaper). Last season also saw the release of The Grotesque and the Sublime, a portrait album of Bjarnason conducting the Iceland Symphony Orchestra in his own works, which received universal acclaim, and The Last Whale Singer, an animated film for which Bjarnason composed the score.

Daníel Bjarnason is known for his cross-genre experimentation and collaborations; he has incorporated electronics into his compositions as a comment on humanity’s relationship with technology, most recently in his first large scale symphonic work I Want to be Alive, and he conducted the London Symphony Orchestra throughout the genre-defying global phenomenon that was Rosalía’s album Lux (2025).

In the 2026/27 season Bjarnason will return to the Iceland Symphony Orchestra for multiple engagements, including a concert for national TV and a collaboration with the electronic pop artist Daði Freyr. Bjarnason also conducts the New World Symphony in Miami, with violinist Jenny Koh, and continues to work on commissions from major orchestras internationally.

Continuing his regular relationship with Los Angeles Philharmonic, in 2025 Bjarnason conducted the world premiere of his song cycle Hands on Me at Walt Disney Concert Hall, alongside other 21 st century works. I Want To Be Alive - Trilogy for Orchestra, also received its world premiere by the Toronto Symphony Orchestra under Gustavo Gimeno, plus four further performances, with Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Iceland Symphony Orchestra, and Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra. Other notable works of his which continue to be regularly performed include his violin concerto Scordatura, premiered in 2017 by Pekka Kuusisto and Los Angeles Philharmonic, his piano concerto FEAST, premiered in 2019 by Víkingur Ólafsson, and A
Fragile Hope, premiered in 2023 by the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra.

In 2023, Bjarnason was named Guest Artist in Residence at Copenhagen Opera Festival, where a co-production of his opera, Brothers, was performed. Originally commissioned in 2017 by the Danish National Opera and directed by Kasper Holten, Brothers is based on the Susanne Bier film of the same name. Holten’s original production was also revived in Reykjavík by The Icelandic Opera in 2018, and subsequently opened Budapest’s 2019 Armel Opera Festival.
 
Bjarnason conducted the world premiere of Jóhann Jóhannsson’s Last and First Men, a
multimedia work narrated by Tilda Swinton, at the 2017 Manchester International Festival with BBC Philharmonic, and subsequently at the Barbican with the London Symphony Orchestra the following year. Bjarnason also conducted Iceland Symphony Orchestra on Deutsche Grammophon’s latest release of Jóhannsson’s music.
 
A recipient of numerous accolades, in 2018 he was awarded the Optimism prize by the President of Iceland, won the 8th Harpa Nordic Film Composers Award for the feature film Under the Tree, and was nominated for the Nordic Council Music Prize. He also won Composer of the Year, Best Composer/Best Composition and Best Performer at the Icelandic Music Awards in recent years.
Photo: Anna Maggý