The Kona Music Festival will be held for the fourth time in October, this time at the National Museum of Iceland. The festival is organized by the ReykjavíkBarokk Chamber Group, in collaboration with the National Museum of Iceland and the Music Fund. The festival consists of three concerts and guided tours of the museum’s main exhibition „Making a nation“. Different items and parts of history will be the focus of each event. The music is by women who broke away from the traditional roles of their time.

The guided tour will begin in the museum’s lobby at 2 pm and will be followed by a concert on the 2nd floor.

Guests only pay the regular admission fee to the museum during the festival events. Admission to the museum is equivalent to an annual pass, so guests can enjoy all the festival events for one price.

Til þín María

To you Maria is a program in which Mary the Mother of God appears to the audience in art, music and speech. The exhibition is inspired by Elsa E. Guðjónsson’s book Creative hands, published by the National Museum of Iceland in 2023. The book specifically discusses the 15th-century Mary Shroud from Reykjahlíð, which is preserved at the National Museum of Denmark in Copenhagen, as well as ancient works of art related to Mary, which are preserved at the National Museum of Iceland. There will be readings from the Icelandic manuscript of the Mary Saga from the 14th century and Sonja B. Jónsdóttir’s book of poems In the Dark I Went to Maria which was published in 2023. Ancient Icelandic Marian songs and poems and works by the Italian composer and nun Isabella Leonarda (1620-1704) will be performed, including excerpts from a motet op. 14 In te Maria, which will be premiered in Iceland.

Performers:
Diljá Sigursveinsdóttir, vocals, baroque violin and recital
Anna Hugadóttir, baroque viola
Sólveig Thoroddsen, baroque harp
Sergio Coto Blanco, theorbo