Article Contributed by Sacks and Company
Published on 2026-10-09
Björk Orkestral with the Hamrahlíð Choir, the extraordinary concert experience recorded at Reykjavík’s Harpa Concert Hall on October 24, 2021, will receive its worldwide physical release on November 27, 2026, available across LP, CD, Blu-ray and DVD.
More than a live recording, Björk Orkestral with the Hamrahlíð Choir captures a meeting between one of Iceland’s most singular musical voices and one of its most important choral institutions. Across an expansive reimagining of Björk’s catalogue, choral arrangements, electronics and her own voice are brought together to reveal familiar songs in unfamiliar forms, sometimes monumental, sometimes fragile, always deeply physical.
Message from Björk:
i am so happy and proud of this concert .. we all put enormous love , energy and time into it . i have learned slowly through the years , about the juxtaposition of voices and the electronic ... for me it is a philosophical matter , how nature and technology can coexist amicably . i got an opportunity to learn how to get this balance just right , through extensive rehearsals in the space we got in covid . it is often easier for me to do this on the recordings , but here we did it physically live . and i could tweak older songs that i felt i hadn´t acquired experience yet how to perform live . i am grateful to bergur þórisson , þorgerður ingólfsdóttir and the hamrahlíð choir for their generousity and this experience .
thank you
The concert was recorded as part of Björk’s series of Orkestral performances at Harpa in 2021, a project conceived around the idea of returning to her music through orchestration rather than spectacle.
Stripped back from the elaborate visual worlds of her larger productions, these performances placed the architecture of the songs themselves centre stage: strings, winds, choir, electronics and voice interacting as one living organism.
At the heart of this particular performance is Hamrahlíðarkórinn, the Hamrahlíð Choir, conducted by its legendary founder Þorgerður Ingólfsdóttir, whose relationship with Björk has grown into one of the most significant creative collaborations in her recent work.
Some of the arrangements were performed by this choir in the recordings, but this live performance also includes other songs originally written for other voice ensembles or instruments from Björk’s catalogue. Their voices bring a different physicality to songs, music that moves between the intimate and the immense.
The repertoire draws primarily from the vocal world of Medúlla (2004) and explores the possibilities of the human voice, nature, technology and new forms of musical collaboration. Heard together in this setting, the songs form a kind of alternate history of Björk’s work: compositions continuously being dismantled, re-orchestrated and rebuilt through new combinations of breath, bodies, electronics and space.
The performance also carries the particular atmosphere of its time. Recorded in Reykjavík in October 2021, as live music and collective gatherings were slowly returning after the profound disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic, the concert brought together musicians and voices at a moment when the simple act of singing together had acquired an extraordinary significance.
Across Björk’s four Orkestral concerts at Harpa, more than 100 Icelandic musicians took part, making the series not only a celebration of her catalogue but a portrait of the breadth and depth of Iceland’s musical community.
The proceeds from the original concert series supported Kvennaathvarfið, a women’s shelter in Reykjavík.
For Björk, the Hamrahlíð Choir collaboration has become an ongoing musical relationship rather than a one-off encounter.
Þorgerður Ingólfsdóttir and the choir first joined Björk on “Body Memory,” from 2017’s Utopia, before becoming an integral part of the Cornucopia live world. The choir appeared at the original Cornucopia performances at The Shed in New York in 2019, followed by the European tour and the filming of Cornucopia in Lisbon.
The collaboration continues to evolve. Most recently, members of the choir contributed to Sorrowful Soil, part of Björk’s immersive installation at the National Gallery of Iceland, demonstrating a creative relationship that continues to move fluidly between recorded music, live performance, visual art and installation.
With Björk Orkestral with the Hamrahlíð Choir, songs that have travelled through decades of Björk’s musical language are heard anew, not as replicas of their recorded originals, but as compositions still capable of changing shape.
The result is a document of Icelandic musicianship, a celebration of the voice and a rare glimpse into the emotional architecture of Björk’s music when the spectacle falls away and the music itself takes centre stage.
Tracklisting
1. Show Me Forgiveness
2. Pleasure Is All Mine
3. Hidden Place
4. Cosmogony
5. Sonnets / Unrealities XI
6. Unravel
7. Vertebræ by Vertebræ
8. Who Is It
9. Mouth’s Cradle
10. Where Is the Line
11. New World
About Björk:
Björk is one of the most innovative and influential artists of her generation. Known for her groundbreaking music, visual art, and performances, Björk’s career has constantly pushed boundaries in music, technology, and activism.
With over 20 million albums sold worldwide, she continues to inspire and challenge audiences with her bold creative visions. From her critically acclaimed app album Biophilia to the immersive Vulnicura VR, Björk has always embraced new technology to enhance her artistry.
With Cornucopia, she redefined what it means to be a performer in the 21st century, blending music, theater, and visual art to deliver a message of environmental hope and resilience.
The Hamrahlíð Choir
The Hamrahlíð Choir has been at the forefront of Icelandic musical life for more than half a century. Þorgerður Ingólfsdóttir formed the Hamrahlíð Choir in 1982 and has been its conductor ever since.
The ensemble is made up of graduates of the Hamrahlíð College Choir, which Þorgerður established in 1967.
Around 3,000 Icelandic teenagers have come into contact with classical music through the Hamrahlíð choral experience. Many had no prior musical training, but through diligent practice went on to participate in music-making of the highest quality, from new Icelandic compositions to the choral masterworks of Bach, Beethoven and Mozart.
The Hamrahlíð College Choir has been a breeding ground for many of Iceland’s leading singers, instrumentalists and composers. Former members include pianist Víkingur Ólafsson, composer Bára Gísladóttir, composer Haukur Tómasson, musicologist Árni Heimir Ingólfsson, baritone Ólafur Kjartan Sigurðarson, bass Kristinn Sigmundsson and Björk herself.
Throughout its history, both choirs have collaborated closely with Icelandic composers. More than 100 works have been composed especially for the choirs, including works by many of Iceland’s leading composers.
The choirs have also collaborated with international artists including Arvo Pärt and John Cage. Pärt was so impressed with the choir’s performance of his Te Deum in 1998 that he composed a choral work dedicated to Þorgerður Ingólfsdóttir, ...which was the son of..., which premiered in 2000.
The Hamrahlíð Choir has travelled to 27 countries and performed at many of the world’s leading choral festivals, introducing audiences around the world to Iceland’s choral tradition.
