The Blue Church Summer Concert Series was founded in 1998 by Muff Worden, musician and Sigurður Jónsson engineer. The concerts are held in the church of Seyðisfjörður on Wednesday nights in July and early August. The aim is to offer a program consisting of different music styles, where classical music, jazz and blues, folk music and lighter music get to shine. The performers are usually highly qualified musicians.
The Seyðisfjörður church is a good concert house, praised by the performers. It houses a fairly new Steinway grand piano and a Frobenius organ with 14-15 stops. It has seats for 300 people. The concert guests are both locals and foreign travellers.

The series has become one of the major cultural events in the East of Iceland. It offers a varied program of music where you can see many of the country’s most interesting musicians in the great concert hall of the Blue Church in Seyðisfjörður.

The church opens at 20:00
Standard ticket price is 4000ISK.
20% off with the Austurland app!

Program 2023

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The Hevreh Ensemble – 12. júlí

NYC based Hevreh Ensemble performs compositions by group member Jeff Adler. Their concerts have delighted audiences and critics alike with appearances throughout the US and Europe, including New York City, the Newport Chamber Music Festival, Saint-Gaudens National Historic Site and concerts in Vienna, Berlin, Bonn, Amsterdam, Prague, and Krakow.

The wide and varied instrumentation includes the innovative use of Cherokee Native American flutes, along with clarinet, bass clarinet, oboe, English horn, world percussion that includes djembe, dumbek, ocean drum, balafon, kalimba, rain stick, tabla, log drum, keyboard, and shofar.

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Jón Ólafsson og Hildur Vala – 19. júlí

Hildur Vala and Jón Ólafsson are both nationally known for their music. Jón is a member of the band „Nýdönsk“, one of Iceland’s longest-running pop and rock bands, and Hildur Vala has been active in the Icelandic music scene ever since she appeared and won in the Icelandic Idol singing competition in 2005. They will play their favorite songs as well as music from their own catalogue but they have each released three solo albums, all well received by the public and critics.

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Íslenski saxófónkvartettinn – 26. júlí

The Icelandic Saxophone Quartet is the first and only active classical saxophone quartet in Iceland. The quartet held its first concert in October 2006 and since then the group has performed regularily in Iceland, for instance on Dark Music Days in Reykjavík, and they have also performed with the renowned Reykjavík Champer Orchestra. The Icelandic saxophone quartet consists of Vigdís Klara Aradóttir, Sigurður Flosason, Peter Tompkins and Guido Bäumer.

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Guðrið Hansdóttir – 2. ágúst

Guðrið Hansdóttir is a singer/songwriter from the Faroe islands and her music is a mix of folkpop and chamber pop. She has released six solo albums and is also a member of the popular electro pop duo BYRTA. Five years on from her last solo record, she has returned with a powerful, personal and emotional album titled “Gult myrkur”(Yellow Darkness). Gudrid has been performing and recording her own music since the millennium and has never shied away from beating her own path. On her latest album she opens up an eerie universe of soundscapes illuminated by her warm, charismatic vocals, and by soft acoustics and light electronic rhythms.

Gudrid ́s passion for poetry led her to the doorstep of Lív María Róadóttir Jæger, a Faroese poet who happily agreed to collaborate on the album. “Gult mykur” won album of the year and lyric of the year at this year’s Faroese Music Awards and has been very well received by critics.  Guðrið is currently working on a new album which will be released later this year.

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Blood Harmony – 9. ágúst

Brought up in a highly musical family, it was no surprise that Örn Eldjárn and Ösp Eldjárn would often collaborate throughout their artistic careers spanning two decades. They have now joined forces again by returning to their folky roots. To perfect the “blood harmony” concept, which happens when close family members sing together, Örn and Ösp are joined by their sister, Björk Eldjárn. The band was formed in early 2020 at the beginning of the covid epidemic. The siblings transformed the basement of their family farm into a studio and started recording. They also started a live streaming session called “The Valley Sessions” where they performed their new music and connected  to a new audience. The following summer they toured around Iceland and in april 2022 they were chosen to perform at Nordic Folk Alliance in Gothenburg. Since then they’ve played festivals in Finland and Scotland and have had a radio performance at BBC Scotland. They are currently working on their debut album.

For more information on the programs, please visit blaakirkjan.is facebook.com/blaakirkjan/