Tinna Thorsteinsdóttir is a concert pianist with a broad experience in new music and has premiered around 100 works especially written for her. She works on a regular basis with numerous Icelandic composers, is active in the Icelandic experimental music scene and has worked on solo works with artists such as Helmut Lachenmann, Alvin Lucier, Christian Wolff, Peter Ablinger, Morton Subotnick, Cory Arcangel and Mme Yvonne-Loriod Messiaen.
Educated as a classical pianist Tinna plays all the different styles of the piano repertoire, although 21st century music is her main passion. Prepared piano, electronics, toy piano, theatre pieces and performance works often show up on her programs. In recent years Tinna has mainly been active as a performance artist, making installations, soundscapes and performance works with materials like piano parts, her own brainwaves, hot and cold glass and electronic music.
Tinna´s main solo recitals list the Bergen International Festival in Norway in the series Young Platform at the Edvard Grieg Museum Troldhaugen, Reykjavik Arts Festival, Dark Music Days festival, Reykjavík, Nordic Music Days, Raflost Festival of Electronic Arts, Reykjavík, ppIANISSIMO International Festival for Contemporary Piano Music at the Bulgarian National Radio, Autunno Musicale music festival in Capua, Italy, Nordischer Klang festival in Greifswald, Germany, Foundling Museum in London, The Chinese University in Hong Kong, GL Strand museum in Copenhagen, Summit Club in Beijing and the Nordic Embassies in Berlin.
Other performances include a duo performance at the Bang on a Can Marathon in San Francisco. Solo performance at Messiaen Festival in Stavanger, Norway. The World Expo 2010 in Shanghai, where Tinna performed on the special Iceland Day at the official opening ceremony at Expo Center, hosted by the President of Iceland and again at the Icelandic Pavilion. In the same year Tinna was part of the Icelandic premiere of Gérard Grisey´s masterpiece Vortex Temporum with the Formalist Quartet at Reykjavik Arts Festival. In 2012 Tinna performed the complete Sonorities cycle for solo piano by Magnús Blöndal Jóhannsson at Tectonics new music festival in Reykjavík. The same year she was part of the Iceland premiere of Visions de l´amen by Olivier Messiaen for two pianos at Reykjavik Arts Festival. In 2017 Tinna premiered two works with Hong Kong New Music Ensemble.
Collaborations with other artforms include a.o. her performance in the video work Constitution of the Republic of Iceland by artist duo Ólafur Ólafsson and Libia Castro and composer Karólína Eiríksdóttir, which was showcased at the Venice Biennale in 2011. Tinna has three times been a resident artist at the glass gallery S12 in Bergen, Norway, where she during her first session created the glass piano sculpture and performance work Cry Piano in 2014 with glass artist Alli Hoag. The same year she was the curator of the large-scale art and performance exhibition Piano at Reykjavik Arts Festival, where she performed Annea Lockwood´s Piano Transplants a.o.
Recent activities include the performance of Anna Thorvaldsdottir´s solo work Trajectories on her CD Aerial, released on Deutsche Grammophon 2014. Tinna played one of the main roles in Thorvaldsdottir´s opera UR_ which was premiered in Theater Trier, Germany 2015. The same year Bylta, an interactive sound- and performance work with glass blowing by Tinna and Alli Hoag, was premiered at Corning Museum of Glass, NY. Following, their new work Sending was premiered at Chrysler Museum of Art, Glass Art Society Conference 2017 and UrbanGlass, NYC. The work Shield, an installation with glass, video and sounding brainwaves, a collaboration between Tinna and glass artist Aesa Bjork, was showcased at the biennial European Glass Context 2016 in Bornholm, Denmark. The second version of the work; Shield II, was a solo exhibition at S12 in 2018. Shield II was awarded the main prize or ‘Grand Prize’ at the triennial Toyama International Glass Exhibition 2018 and was showcased at the Toyama Glass Art Museum, Japan, consequently becoming part of its permanent collection. The work is exhibited for the second time at Toyama Glass Art Museum until June 7th 2020. Their most recent collaboration; Shield III, was showcased in Venice during the 58th Biennale 2019, as part of an exhibition organised by Karuizawa New Art Museum – Venice Branch, at San Marco Square.
Her solo CD Granit Games with Icelandic piano music was released in 2007 with Bad Taste Records. The CD is available on Spotify.
Tinna is founder and one of the artistic directors of Cycle Music and Art Festival. She will be the artistic director for Nordic Music Days 2021, which will be held in Iceland.
She was awarded the DV Culture Prize for Music in Iceland in 2013.
Tinna studied in Hannover and Münster in Germany before taking on further studies at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston with Stephen Drury. She received a Fulbright scholarship and the Thor Thors grant from the American-Scandinavian Foundation. Tinna has participated in several courses and had private lessons with pianists such as Mme Yvonne Loriod-Messiaen, Peter Hill, Håkon Austbø, Steffen Schleiermacher, Pierre Réach and the Ensemble Modern Academy. She has also studied electronic music. Tinna holds a master´s degree in Conference Interpreting from the University of Iceland and also works as such.
Links:
Shield I-III – collaboration between Tinna and Aesa Bjork, glass artist
Bylta – Tinna´s and Alli Hoag´s sound- and performance glass art duo with glass blowing
Cycle Music and Art Festival
Photo Credit: Rafael Pinho