Hafliði Hallgrímsson Recordings
The cellist and composer Hafliði Hallgrímsson was born in Akureyri Iceland in 1941.
After graduating from the Music School in Reykjavík in 1962, he continued his studies with Enrico Mainardi in Rome and subsequently at the Royal Academy of Music in London, where he was awarded a Recital Medal and the Madame Suggia Prize. On leaving the Academy he studied composition privately with Sir Peter Maxwell Davies.
As a cellist he was active as a member of many chamber groups and orchestras including the English Chamber Orchestra, the Haydn String Trio, and the Mondrian Piano Trio and the New Music Group of Scotland. He made his debut as a cellist at the Wigmore Hall in 1971 to a great critical acclaim.
He was appointed a principal cellist of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra in 1977, but left the orchestra in 1983 to devote himself to composition full time. He has composed more than 100 works that range in content from pieces for children, to an opera based on 14 mini-stories by the Russian absurdist writer Daniil Kharms.
He has composed concertos for many internationally acclaimed soloists such as Truls Mörk, Jaime Laredo, and the soprano Helena Juntunen, to mention only a few. His compositions have been performed widely and won several prizes, including the first prize in the International Viotti competition for VERSE I, and the Wieniawski Prize for POEMI for violin and strings. POEMI was also awarded the prestigious Nordic Council Prize in 1986.
He has had a particularly successful relationship with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, which has commissioned several compositions from him, as well as the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra and the Iceland Symphony Orchestra, whose composer in residence he has been on two occasions. He is the recipient of the Order of the Falcon, awarded by the Icelandic Government for services to Icelandic music.
