The BBC’s Total Immersion: Icelandic Chill on 22 February 2026 was illuminating and joyous. It was a real privilege to talk all day on Icelandic music – and even more, to do so with Icelandic musicians.
The phrase ‘First Icelandic School’ came up quite a lot over the course of the day, beginning with my talk in the morning. I was asked if I coined this phrase. Yes, I did.
To paraphrase the event’s programme notes, I would designate the First Icelandic School as a generation of Icelandic (or Iceland-resident) composers who have emerged mostly since the turn of the millennium whose music sounds different but taps into various unifying characteristics and is arguably influenced, consciously or otherwise, by Iceland’s distinct topography.
The characteristics I refer to include generally slow speeds, use of drones and pedal notes and a preference for instrumental or electronic rendering. With regard to orchestration, I would identify as a First Icelandic School trait a vaporous and almost spectral treatment of the acoustic symphony orchestra that can either cleave to low tessituras, float with apparently anti-gravitational qualities, or appear to do both – either at the same time, or in the course of a single piece. I also tend to think of a certain breadth and space as central to music of the First Icelandic School, but this is something it has in common with Nordic music from Grieg onwards.
There are musicians I would associate with the ‘school’ whose music might only tap into a couple of those characteristics. But in typical Icelandic fashion, those characteristics – though finding a particualr fertile home in acoustic orchestral works by the likes of Anna Thorvaldsdottir – don’t seem to be bound by any genre in particular: Sigur Rós, Janus Rasmussen and Vök all display one or more of them in various forms as does some entirely-sampled music by Hildur Guðnadóttir. Daníel Bjarnason is a hub-like figure within the First Icelandic School but his music frequently shows none of those characteristics. There are non-Icelandic passport holders whom I would associate with the First Icelandic School (they do, however, live in Iceland).
Of course, there were Icelandic composers before there was the First Icelandic School. So how is the term valid? Well, you could argue that most Icelandic composers who came to maturity significantly before the turn of the millennium – Sigfus Einarsson, Jón Leifs, Hafliði Hallgrímsson, Björk (considering her pre-2000 work) – were either strongly influenced by external European models or were lone wolfs. (One exception here might be the strong links between the music of Leifs and Björk, despite them writing, ostensibly at least, in different genres).
The constituency that could be referred to as the First Icelandic School is perhaps even more united by outlook than its members are by the sound of their music (though that is a strong feature): most have been influenced by electronic and pop music; most have crossed genres; most have made significant creative use of the internet; most are women and an uncanny proportion started out playing low stringed instruments. Together, the First Icelandic School can be said to be the only nationally-representative group of ‘composers’ to have emerged after the millennium and to be significantly populated – perhaps even dominated – by women.
What are the precedents for the phrase? It doesn’t appear in my book The Northern Silence. I first used it in print in an article on the composer Daníel Bjarnason for Gramophone magazine. I used it shortly afterwards in a programme note for the Philharmonia Orchestra’s performance of a piece by María Huld Markan Sigfúsdóttir and have used it subsequently for a sleeve note to a new recording of music by Bjarnason. Following the BBC event at the weekend, it has been picked up by The Times and The Guardian newspapers.
Like any signifying phrase, it’s probably a little clumsy and is destined for misuse. Still, I think it’s helpful to a point, and would welcome opinions on its validity. And just who is a member of the First Icelandic School?