You are one of the four portrait artists this season, alongside Jeanine De Bique, Pavel Kolesnikov and Jlin. Are you familiar with any of their work? 
Thorvaldsdottir: “I've heard some of Jlin’s music before, but the others I'm still getting to know. It's always so nice to get to know new artists and see what they're up to. So that will be a treat.”

Do you listen to electronic music often?
Thorvaldsdottir: “I really enjoy listening to different genres and I listen to quite a lot of electronic music. Sometimes it can be more drone-based, sometimes more beat-based, and often it is very abstract. Things of course resonate with us at different times and in different ways, so I allow myself to go with the flow in that.”

Your music is very meticulously notated, but there is an affinity to electronic music in the sense that your pieces often seem to be very slowly emerging soundscapes. Maybe you couldn't have written this kind of work before electronic music. 
Thorvaldsdottir: “Yeah, I absolutely agree with that. I am very inspired by electronic music: in the way that sound and its movement are so inspiring. How things can move around the orchestra - and are organic and technical at the same time - is very inspiring for me too. Electronic music is sometimes very removed from the human performance. So I enjoy both of these elements put together: sounds that are sometimes very raw, but in a very human way.”

You grew up in Iceland, which has very specific landscapes. Would you say this has influenced you and your compositions?
Thorvaldsdottir: “Yeah, I'm sure it has. When I was growing up I thought this was normal everywhere; you're always so close to the ocean and the landscape is so open - you usually see very far and it ends with a mountain somewhere on the horizon. So I believe I carry that sense of space with me in my music in one way or another. I'm not trying to describe it in the music, but it is something that's very much a part of who I am. There are also many elements of nature that have different energies and powers that are inspiring, simple things like the weather. So it's more that energy, structure and flow in nature that inspires me rather than some specific places or things.” 

“I hear things in layers and have multiple textures moving around at the same time. And the orchestra is such a beautiful vehicle for that.” 

You often start from sketches, making drawings, how does this process work?
Thorvaldsdottir: “For me, the process starts a step before that because the sketch has emerged from what I'm hearing internally. So the very first step for me is to find where the piece of music wants to live. At that time I usually have the instrumentation in mind and I know the people who are going to be premiering it. When the ideas are starting to materialize and I know the direction of sound, structure and movement, I start to sketch to remember the music. And then the sketches also start to feed back to the ideas and give you more ideas. That's really a very important part of the creative process for me... I have a map, but a map that is also changing all the time. When I have a really good idea about this new piece, then I start to notate.” 

And you go back to these maps then?
Thorvaldsdottir: “I use them as a mnemonic device. They are there for me to go back to and to listen to an idea as I'm writing it out, because I'm often writing very large pieces for many people. So there are a lot of notes and it takes a long time to notate it all. It's a way to not have to keep everything in the mind at all times. I actually put the sketches on the walls as I'm writing so that I can see this is that place in the piece.” 

It's a kind of guide to your internal sonic mind palace.
Thorvaldsdottir: “Yeah, absolutely. Nobody else would be able to hear exactly what it is that I'm hearing looking at the sketches. They might hear something else. So it's not in any way a graphic score.”

You're very drawn to the orchestra. What attracts you to it?
Thorvaldsdottir: “It really resonates with how I hear music internally. I hear things in layers and have multiple textures moving around at the same time. And the orchestra is such a beautiful vehicle for that. There are endless possibilities and I really just enjoy working with multiple dimensions of sound.”

There’s a few centuries of orchestral music and remnants from the past pop up too: at the end of AERIALITY a romantic symphony seems to be unravelling with broad, sweeping melodic lines.
Thorvaldsdottir: “Older music always has a part in who we are today and where I am and where I have been. I'm not afraid of mixing very contemporary material with seemingly older materials. For me, it's so intriguing and exciting to combine lyricism with abstract sounds and the flow of harmonic textures. So I feel like I live in this world where both are kind of equal parts. I'm not afraid of writing a melody or something lyrical. But I also do this with sound: I think about the nuances and textures in a very lyrical way. I write them out like melodies so it's not just about the sound in the moment, it's about the curve of the sound.”

AERIALITY, is performed during the opening concert of the BNO. The piece dates back to 2011 and is the oldest work on the programme. All along the season we hear works from the last fifteen years, offering a cross-section of your orchestral work. 
Thorvaldsdottir: “It’s really wonderful to have so many orchestral pieces over one season because that gives all of us time to live and breathe together in a way that usually doesn't happen with contemporary music. And I think that's a beautiful thing. The orchestra will be diving even deeper. That's so precious and allows us the time to get to know each other too.”

Speaking of time, in AERIALITY one of the performance instructions is very vivid and poetic: “When you see a long sustained pitch, think of it as a fragile flower that you have 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.” It seems to imply a serious responsibility for the musician. 
Thorvaldsdottir: “I really enjoy writing these kind of not too long, but very meaningful descriptions on what my intentions are as the composer and giving a sense of urgency, but also power. Because when I finish my job and I hand the music over, it's now their music and it's them performing it and I can give hints and points to the atmosphere. This description was to just give a sense of the powerful urgency in something so simple as a sustained note.” 

That's very interesting. Because of this instruction the note maybe becomes more than just a sustained tone, it gets charged with a kind of intensity.
Thorvaldsdottir: “Exactly, absolutely.”

“For me, it's so intriguing and exciting to combine lyricism with abstract sounds and the flow of harmonic textures.” 

In your programme texts you also use a lot of metaphors. In AERIALITY you speak about gliding through the air, in METACOSMOS one is falling into a black hole and in your cello concerto Before we fall you write about teetering on the edge. What is it that draws you to these kind of metaphors? 
Thorvaldsdottir: “These metaphors are about both struggle and acceptance, about living and connecting. And music is exciting when you have balancing forces. For me it's also exciting to balance them into something that sounds together and beautiful. These metaphors also help you carry the materials in ways that make sense. With the cello concerto, for example, this idea of teetering on the edge starts to feed the orchestration, it starts to feed how you treat each note. And that's a really powerful thing. But that said, at the end it's really about the music, how people experience it and how it touches us. Music, and art in general, is always created by humans in the time that they live in and things get put into art that are human and that connect to our lives.”

CATAMORPHOSIS is a piece about our times, a very urgent one. It’s about the fragile relationship to our planet.
Thorvaldsdottir: “From the very beginning when I was composing CATAMORPHOSIS, I was inspired by that urgency, that battle and hope as well. As I was writing it, the big pandemic happened: I found myself working on this huge piece when nobody was even allowed to be together in one room. So the piece, very organically, had a very intense inspiration. There is also a deep hope and brightness that shines through, which really balances the aspects of distortion - of moments where you come together, either in harmony or rhythm.” 

Your first concerto, composed in 2024, will also be performed. Why did you wait so long to write one? 
Thorvaldsdottir: “I really have such a deep passion for working with the orchestra, with that mass and togetherness. So I wanted to wait, and when I would finally write a concerto, it would have to be very meaningful in all of these different aspects. There is of course a soloist, but it was very important to me that everything is somewhat equally tied together. The orchestra is such a big part of the whole piece and they are not “accompanying” as such. The cello is slightly amplified because I did not want to bring the orchestra down in volume, allowing them, rather, to really be full. It’s also about the ideology: for me music is about the community, about all of us. So I really had to determine how to place that balance.”

It's very lyrical the piece, but the cello part is also very forceful at times. 
Thorvaldsdottir: “Yeah, absolutely. It's a very demanding and intense part for the soloist to carry throughout the whole piece. But it has these moments - many of them actually - where you really kind of go into more of an open space and deep lyricism.”

The cello is also your original instrument. Maybe this played a role too. 
Thorvaldsdottir: “Yeah, it felt very right for me to have the cello be the first concerto that I would write. Of course I have to know all the instruments very well, but you have a special relationship with your instrument and that was very organic.”

“At the beginning, I go into that space where I meditate on the music. Where does it want to live? Is it very nuanced? Is it very forceful? And that's the guiding light from the start every time.”

METAXIS is a more unusual composition: the Belgian National Orchestra will move to the Ravenstein Gallery, where it will separate into different groups. 
Thorvaldsdottir: “Yeah, it's a piece for deconstructed orchestra in an open space where you can come and walk around, be inside the music, experience how the music moves around in the physical space and you can choose your own point of listening. You can be closer to the lowest register, closer to the upper register, ... The audience really plays a big part and everyone is listening from different perspectives and experiences the music differently depending on where they are. It is very visual as well to see the orchestra in this setup.”

The piece seems to be much closer to sound art than to a normal orchestral work.
Thorvaldsdottir: “Absolutely. It's really interesting to be able to get a full orchestra into a space that is not its usual environment. It’s powerful to have all these people and, depending on the space, you can either have them distributed between floors or just really spread out. It also brings a lot of technical aspects that you have to carefully consider, both when writing the piece and when placing the performers in the space. So I spent quite some time obsessing over instrument placements: who needs to be together, who needs to be really close, who needs to be really far away? I had to know that before I was writing, because of how I want the materials to move in the physical space as well as in the music.” 

Two more intimate works will be performed as well: the string quartet Enigma, during Ars Musica, and Spectra for ensemble. How does it feel to come back to that smaller scale, leaving behind all the colours of the orchestra?
Thorvaldsdottir: “I really enjoy that too, because you go into a different kind of tactility of sound. You have to think quite differently about materials, structure and how you carry things. Enigma for example is largely about how you musically breathe in and out of focus, about the nuances, sounds and textures that flow throughout the piece. You can of course do things in chamber music that are not possible with the orchestra. Often I'm writing an orchestral piece and a smaller piece at the same time because they live in different atmospheres for me. But I'm always guided by my internal musical voice. At the beginning, I go into that space where I meditate on the music. Where does it want to live? Is it very nuanced? Is it very forceful? And that's the guiding light from the start every time.”

Does music play in your mind all the time or is it something you can turn off easily? 
Thorvaldsdottir: “It depends. I don't want to turn it off because that's where it gets created. As I'm listening inside the mind, things get added and the elements add on and on. It might start with a let's say, a simple rhythm or a simple sound. And then gradually it becomes this whole universe of things that combines various layers. That only happens when I'm really able to live with it.” 

Cedric Feys