A Brand New 'Musicians Union' ;o)
in Seyðisfjörður, Iceland; Part two |
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(Editor's Note: The story so far: Through a musical Internet collaboration, Austrian Editor Florian has scheduled a performance at The Blue Church in Seyðisfjörður, East Iceland. Part 1 detailed all the planning, and now, back to Florian...)
... I arrived in Reykjavík, Iceland's capital, on August 28. Actually,
international flights land in Keflavík, 35 miles south of Reykjavík.
After I put my ten-year-old daughter on the flight back home to
Minneapolis (her first flight alone) I jumped on the FlyBus to
Reykjavík. The weather was gloomy, but I enjoyed the ride through the
rocky landscape. Coming into the city, I spotted the interesting church
in the photo at the right. Its spire can be seen from many miles out.About
165,000 of Iceland's 270,000 inhabitants live in and around Reykjavík.
But I would fly over the uninhabitable highlands across Iceland from west to east to the little fishing village of
Seyðisfjörður (its county is marked in red on the Iceland map above). I
knew this would be a big adventure. Not just because of the remote
location, but so far all arrangements had been made in cyberspace. And
promptly the first scare came when the beautiful Icelandic agent
couldn't find my ticket for the domestic flight. My friend Muff, the
concert organizer, had supposedly taken care of the reservations. But
finally the ticket was found! Armed with my 35mm camera, I boarded
the little plane. It felt like flying over a different planet, with
uninhabited land as far as the eye could see. The scenery was
breathtaking. In the picture above you can see a mountain lake, a huge glacier, and a volcano covered with ice in the background.
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When
Muff picked me up from the airport with her UV -- it must be a law that
every car in Iceland has four-wheel-drive -- all our petty e-mail
embraces turned into one big bear hug! We had to drive 15 miles over
the hill to our final destination (picture>>>), one of the most
spectacular places on earth, trust me! That same evening I met my
wonderful accompanist, Aladár, and we ventured across the street to the
church to check out our concert location. When we left the church, I
looked up and there they were: the Northern Lights, a streak of
colorful, flickering lights across the whole sky! No biggie, after all,
we were only about 150 miles from the Arctic Circle ;o) The concert at the blue church
two days later went well. The diverse audience seemed to
enjoy the variety program thoroughly. We had people come from three different camps: the locals, the people from over the hill, which included some American musicians living there, and tourists from various countries
who would leave with the ferry the next morning.
The background music makes the concert picture below come alive with the
piece we were playing at the time: a piano duet of Mozart's A Little Night Music.
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