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 Songs:

“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 featured on Putumayo's Dream World, 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.”

The Nordic Nights track “Huggun” (Comfort), was recorded as part of a collaborative project called Myndra, formed by Linus and two French-Canadian musicians who stayed at Linus’ house when they were traveling in Iceland. After discovering a musical connection, the trio later gathered in Rimouski, Quebec to record the 2014 album Songs from your Collarbone in a home studio. Linus describes the song as a call to meet life's challenges with clarity and determination: “Even when I am met with more sorrow than joy, I still bet my heart against the world.”

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