Visiting Researcher: Halldór Úlfarsson

Posted by thor magnusson on March 10, 2015

The Music Department welcomes a visiting researcher – Halldór Úlfarsson – from the Icelandic Academy of the Arts. Halldór is a specialist in acoustics and new musical instrument design, and will discuss his work with Music and CHASE consortium PhD students, give masterclasses, and a lecture for students in the Creative Music Technology module.

Detailed programme:

Wednesday, March 18th – 1pm (Creativity Zone) – “Reflections from a decade of open ended acoustic investigations”

This talk will be twofold. In the first part, Halldór will present the research and conceptual development of the halldorophone instrument here wonderfully played by Hildur Guðnadóttir who releases with the London-based Touch label.

The second part will introduce a module taught at the Icelandic Academy of the Arts, in a collaboration with composer Þráinn Hjálmarsson, structured around open-ended investigation of acoustics as artistic medium for composition students. This part will summarise the work done during the course, discussing some of the more successful outcomes of that process (including experimental clarinet barrels featured in a piece performed by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra in 2014).

Thursday, March 19th – 4pm (Recital Room – after the Tony Dummet Event): Post-graduate Masterclass: “Music as a by-product of other narrative systems / Culture as Material”

Discussing in more detail the hacking of timbre and scale in classical instruments with students of composition at the IAA and examples of projects from the new music scene in Iceland that inspired and informed that process. Halldór will discuss his design practice as a prop in the context of visual art and on the effort of creating a culture for a new musical instrument. Also musings on the ontological classification of the products of this effort.

Friday, March 20th – 11am – Lecture for CMT – “The halldorophone”

Students in the Creative Music Technologies module will get an overview of the exciting field of developing new musical instruments: the concerns of tradition, materiality, legacy and sustainability. Halldór will provide a deeper discussion of the technical ins and outs of the Halldorophone, design goals and problems…

Halldor Ulfarsson

Short bio

Halldór Úlfarsson is an artist and designer who collaborates with composers, musicians and institutions on projects relating to his string instrument the Halldorophone. These projects are presented as performances or recorded and presented as films or installations.

Halldór studied at the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts with an overlapping MA in applied art and design at the Aalto University in Helsinki Finland. He has exhibited his art in Europe and Iceland where he lives and works for the Icelandic Academy of the Arts.

Website: http://www.halldorulfarsson.info