The Garðabær Women’s Choir

The Garðabær Women’s Choir was founded on September 4, 2000. The founder and choir director is Garðabær’s very own Mrs. Ingibjörg Guðjónsdóttir, soprano. The choir numbers about 40 singers. From the start, the goal of the Garðabær Women’s Choir has been to give women a chance to participate in an ambitious, clearly-defined, and socially-rewarding singing project.
The choir’s repoirtoire includes Icelandic and international choral music from all periods, with a special emphasis on works by women composers.
Each year, the choir is involved in numerous concerts and other cultural events. In addition to performing on various occasions in its hometown, it has toured the country on a number of occasions. In June 2005, the choir performed in Prag and Vienna, where it sang in two of Europe’s premiere baroque churches. In October 2007 the choir travelled to Copenhagen to perform.
Since its foundation, the Garðabær Women’s Choir has been accompanied by first-rate musicians. Today, its regular pianist is Mrs. Sólveig Anna Jónsdóttir.
The dresses worn by the singers on festive occasions are an original Icelandic design by Mrs. Ragna Fróða. From its inception, the Garðabær Women’s Choir has contributed greatly to the culture of Garðabær and its neighbouring areas, and it is now one of the pillars of Garðabær’s cultural life. At the start of 2007, Garðabær renewed its collective agreement with the Garðabær Women’s Choir, which places it on a firmer financial footing and greatly facilitates future planning.

Choir director: Ingibjörg Guðjónsdóttir, soprano

Mrs. Guðjónsdóttir, soprano and choir director, was born in 1965. She started her muscial eduction by singing with the Garðabær School Choir and receiving piano lessons. At the age of seventeen, she enrolled in singing at the Garðabær Music Academy, from which she graduated in 1986. Her postgraduate studies took her to the United States, where she studied under the guidance of the celebrated Rumanian soprano, Virginia Zeani, at Indiana University at Bloomington. Mrs. Guðjónsdóttir has also received singing instruction from Ilena Cotrubas, one of the most renowned sopranos of the 20th century. When only nineteen years old, Mrs. Guðjónsdóttir won a singing contest held by the Icelandic National Broadcasting Service and was thereby awarded the chance to participate in the Cardiff Singer of the World competition.
Mrs. Guðjónsdóttir has held many solo concerts and been a soloist with choirs and symphony orchestras in Iceland, as well as abroad. She has been her nation’s representative in music festivals, including the Budapest Spring Festival and the Scandinavian Festival of Music.
Between 1995 and 1999, Mrs. Guðjónsdóttir lived in Denmark, where she pursued her career as a soloist, in addition to founding and conducting the Icelandic Women’s Choir of Copenhagen.
Her repertoire includes the role of Mimi in La Boheme, Guðrún Gjúkadóttir in Haukur Tómasson’s award-winning Guðrún’s Fourth Song, and the Muse in Karólína Eiríksdóttir’s Shadow Play. For the last few years, Mrs. Guðjónsdóttir has premiered many new compositions by Icelandic and international composers, for example, Karólína Eiríksdóttir, Þorkell Sigurbjörnsson, John Speight, and the Danish composer Frederik Magle.
The fall of 2005 saw the release of her CD Operatic Arias, which features Mrs. Guðjónsdóttir’s performances of well-known arias by Puccini and Mozart with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra conducted by Gerrit Schuil.
Mrs. Guðjóndóttir currently lives in Iceland, where she stars as a soloist, teaches singing, and conducts the Garðabær Women’s Choir, which she established in 2000.

 Choir pianist: Sólveig Anna Jónsdóttir

Mrs. Sólveig Anna Jónsdóttir was born in Akureyri and studied the piano in Akureyri Music School, later with Halldór Haraldsson at Reykjavík College of Music, and then with Nancy Weems at University of Houston in Houston Texas. She is now a pianoteacher and an accompanist at Kópavogur Music School and is also active in playing chambermusic and accompanying singers and choirs.

 
The Garðabær Women’s Choir hometown