Category: Music in Iceland

Articles About Music in Iceland

For a country of fewer than four hundred thousand people, Iceland produces an extraordinary amount of music — and an extraordinary range of it. Björk and Sigur Rós put the country on the map, but they were only the beginning. The scene today ranges from indie and electronic to jazz, choral, metal, and a deep classical tradition, and it punches far above its size.

There are reasons for that. Music education is taken seriously here; nearly everyone seems to play in a band or sing in a choir at some point, and the long dark winters give people good cause to make something. The result is a creative community that’s unusually close-knit, where the same musicians turn up across wildly different projects.

For experiencing music in Iceland firsthand, timing helps. Iceland Airwaves, each November, is the flagship festival, filling Reykjavík’s venues and turning the whole city into a stage. Summer brings festivals around the country, and Reykjavík has a steady run of live music year-round in venues large and small. Harpa, the concert hall on the waterfront, is worth a visit for the building alone — and well worth it for a concert.

This is also a subject we know well. Our archive of interviews includes conversations with Icelandic musicians about how the scene actually works and where to hear it at its best.
In this section, you’ll find our guides to music in Iceland: the artists worth knowing, the festivals worth planning around, the venues worth seeking out, and the stories behind the scenes — the honest, practical advice we’d give a friend who wants to hear the real thing while they’re here.