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Click on the picture to watch an audio slideshow of the lambing season at Brimnes, a farm in the north of Iceland, in April 2008. Sheep farmer Arnar Gústafsson and his girlfriend Edda Björk take shifts watching over the nearly 300 ewes and helping them give birth 24/7 for about two months or until the last lamb is born. In Iceland, the arrival of lambs is synonymous with the arrival of summer. The lambing season is currently at its height.
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Located just 40 minutes by car and six minutes from Keflavík International Airport, Sandgerdi (“Sandy Hedge”) is a growing town of 1,700 with a storied history and loads to see. Read this special promotion about the hidden secrets of one of Iceland's most charming seaside villages.
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There will be an open house at Harpa, the new concert and conference center on the Reykjavík seaside, on Saturday and Sunday with the formal opening celebration taking place tonight, which will be broadcast live on national broadcaster RÚV, starting at 5:55 pm.
Harpa. Photo by Geir Ólafsson.
The first opening concerts by the Iceland Symphony Orchestra were held last week.
Tomorrow, May 14, the doors of Harpa will be open to the public as of 11 am. Concerts will take place in two smaller music halls, Nordurljós and Kaldalón, throughout the day, mbl.is reports.
Performers include the male choir Fóstbraedur, Gissur Páll Gissurarson, the Reykjavík Chamber Orchestra, Ólafur Arnalds, the Caput group, the choir of the Icelandic Opera, Kristinn H. Árnason, Björn Thoroddsen and Kazumi Watanabe, and the trio of Tómas R. Einarsson will play at the entrance.
Tomorrow evening at 8 pm a rock concert will begin in Silfurberg, Harpa’s second-largest music hall. Apparat Organ Quartet, Mammút, Agent Fresco, Valdimar, Hjaltalín, Jónas Sigurdsson and his backup band, ritvélar framtídarinnar, Lights on the Highway and HAM will perform. The concert ends at midnight.
On the occasion of the opening of Harpa, all of these events will be free.
On Sunday, May 15, the building will open at 11 am where a varied children’s program will take place throughout the day.
In Eldborg, the center’s largest hall, two children’s concerts with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra and the music-loving mouse Maximus Musicus will be performed.
These concerts are sold out but all other events will be free. These include the play about Mr. Pot and Mrs. Lid, which will be staged in Kaldalón at 5 pm and 5:45 pm.
From 1 pm onwards a special music festival for children and teenagers will take place in Silfurberg where more than 300 youngsters will perform.
Click here to see photos from a Harpa pre-opening concert last week and here to read the program on the concert center’s website.
Magnús Skarphéðinsson, principal of the Icelandic Elf School, has expressed his concern that Independence Party MP Árni Johnsen may be subject to an accident after relocating a boulder allegedly inhabited by elves to his home in the Westman Islands.
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The first music festival this summer, Reykjavík Live, kicks off with concerts in the center of Iceland’s capital tonight and will carry on through May 20. The venues are Gamli Gaukurinn, Glaumbar, Prikið and Frú Berlaug.
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President of Iceland Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson and his main rival for the presidential election on June 30, Þóra Arnórsdóttir, are supported by an almost equal number of voters, 41.3 and 43.4 percent, respectively, as indicated in a new survey.
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The West Fjords District Court ruled on Monday that a man found guilty of having drowned a Labrador by tying its front and hind legs, fastening it to car tires and throwing it in the ocean is to pay ISK 100,000 (USD 786, EUR 612) in fine.
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The current issue of the quarterly magazine Iceland Review includes interviews with fashion photographer Saga Sig and conceptual artist Rúrí. Also, we take you to Grímsstaðir á Fjöllum, that desolate land coveted by a Chinese tycoon, and also explore Icelandic archeological remains. We discuss the Icelandic Church, the flourishing gaming industry, debate the future of Iceland’s energy resources and interview the president of the Icelandic National League of North America. Subscribe now and receive a free photo book by IR’s editor Páll Stefánsson of the Eyjafjallajökull eruptions. Click here to subscribe to the magazine and here to buy a gift subscription.
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REVIEWS
The Reykjavík Shorts&Docs was held in Reykjavík from May 6 to 9 in Bíó Paradís, and what an enriching experience it was to attend the festival.
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Shedding light on Iceland’s thousand-year history, as manifested in remains ranging from Viking graves to enchanted sites, Mannvist is a fundamental piece of writing. Ásta Andrésdóttir met with its author, archaeologist Birna Lárusdóttir.
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“The House Project” currently on display in Hafnarborg, the Hafnarfjörður Centre of Culture and Fine Art, is a new artwork by Hreinn Friðfinnsson consisting of a photography series of the three houses. His work is described as “a poetic and philosophical exploration of every day human experience.”
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