Orchestra presents performance entirely composed of instruments made by one man

Echoes of the Ages, a new festival taking place in Iceland this month, is set to celebrate 40 years of violin making with an orchestral performance using only instruments made by luthier Hans Jóhannsson.

Taking place at Reykjavik’s Ásmundarsalur art space, the festival, which started at the beginning of the month, will present the history and tradition of violin making, with a focus on construction, timbre, performance and the symbiosis of musician and instrument. Alongside solo and duet performances, talks and demonstrations of experimental instruments, the festival will bring together 35 of Jóhannsson’s instruments to close the festival.

Jóhannsson said: ‘The closing concert will be an extraordinary moment for me, after whittling away at some pieces of wood, to hear the result of all that toil in a performance of over 35 of my instruments is truly exciting.’

Conducted by Bjarni Frímann Bjarnason, the programme will feature a string quartet by María Huld Markan, as well as Metamorphosen by Richard Strauss. The orchestra will also perform Onium Ion, a new work premiered by Jóhannsson’s son, composer and instrument maker Úlfur Hansson and Gyða Valtýsdóttir who will lead the cello and string orchestra. Jóhannsson's daughter, multidisciplinary artist Elín Hansdóttir, is the festival’s artistic director.

She said: ‘For me as a visual artist and set designer who usually works in public spaces with rather big constructions or installations, it has been a real pleasure to create a platform for this exhibition. The world of violin making is largely a hidden one and mostly as listeners to classical music we know very little about this incredibly rich history of craftmanship, science and specific aesthetics. It is only now that I realize what a privilege it was to grow up in a violinmaker's workshop – and how formative it was – and I felt very strongly that I had to mediate this rich heritage to the general public.’

Having created over 300 violins, violas, cellos, double basses and experimental new stringed instruments since the mid-1970s, Jóhannsson creates all his instruments from his own drawings and designs, as opposed to basing his designs on the works of Italian masters.