Linus Orri (Iceland)

Icelandic musician and composer Linus Orri is a passionate advocate for his country’s rich folk traditions. He also designed and built the world’s first electric langspil (Icelandic zither). Linus is a key figure in Iceland’s traditional music revival, having founded the Vaka Folk Festival, directed the video series Kyndilberar on Icelandic singing, and led youth-focused choirs and initiatives through his role with Kvæðamannafélagið Iðunn, a cultural society with a

mission to preserve, practice, and teach traditional Icelandic poetic–song forms. His work spans performance, research and instrument making, always with the aim of keeping Iceland’s ancestral music alive and evolving.

Featured Song:

“Draumkvæði” (Dream Poem) is Linus Orri’s arrangement of a traditional Icelandic ballad passed down through oral tradition. Versions of the song can be found throughout Western Europe, but this Icelandic variant focuses on a scene where a woman asks her stepmother to interpret her dream in exchange for a golden chest. What follows is a sequence of images that the stepmother then interprets but, in the end, she declines the reward. “Beautifully sings the swan / in the long summer season / I dreamed of the moon / shining over all of Scania / My fair lily.”

Artist Website

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