Icelandic-American cellist Geirþrúður Anna Guðmundsdóttir, an ASF Fellow, performs works with Icelandic-Slovenian violinist Rannveig Marta Sarc by composers Hafliði Hallgrímsson, Zoltán Kodály, and Maurice Ravel.
Works will include Hallgrímsson’s 7 Epigrams for Violin and Cello, Op. 23; Kodály’s Duo for Violin and Cello, Op. 7; and Ravel’s Sonata for Violin and Cello.
About the Performers
Geirþrúður Anna Guðmundsdóttir
Icelandic-American cellist Geirþrúður Anna Guðmundsdóttir is establishing herself as a dynamic and versatile young artist. She made her debut in 2013 with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra and graduated with a soloist diploma from the Reykjavík College of Music the same year. She went on to study with Prof. Hans Jensen at Northwestern University and completed her bachelor’s degree in 2017. She served as a member of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago during their 2017-18 season and is now pursuing a master’s degree at The Juilliard School, under the tutelage of Prof. Natasha Brofsky.
She has been a prize winner at numerous competitions, including the Iceland Symphony Orchestra Young Soloist Competition (2012), the Thaviu String Competition (2015), The Evanston Music Club Competition (2014), the Musicians Club of Women Competition (2014), the WDAV Young Chamber Musicians Competition (2017) and the Dover String Quartet Competition (2017). Additionally, she has received fellowships from the Jean-Pierre Jaquillat Memorial Foundation, the Valitor Foundation in Reykjavík, the Rotary Foundation in Iceland, the American-Scandinavian Foundation, the American-Scandinavian Society, and the Leifur Eiríksson Foundation. She has performed solo recitals in the United States, Iceland, and Holland and was featured as a soloist with the Ungfónía Orchestra in Iceland in 2017.
A passionate chamber musician, Geirþrúður has received several accolades for her ensemble playing. She received the chamber music prize at the Ecole d’Art Américains de Fontainebleau, and as a member of Quartet Amí, a string quartet founded at Northwestern, she garnered several prizes, performed quartet-in-residence at the Mineral Point Chamber Music Festival in June 2017, and saw several of their performances broadcast on WFMT. Along with Rannveig, she is a co-founder of the Elja Ensemble, an Icelandic chamber collective dedicated to innovative programming and performance. Geirþrúður plays on a Pierre Silvestre cello from 1857.
Rannveig Marta Sarc
Rannveig Marta Sarc was born into a family of musicians. She made her concerto debut with The Iceland Symphony Orchestra when she was 14 and performed with them again a few years later, as the winner of their Young Soloist Competition. She has received numerous awards, including the first prize at TEMSIG National Music Competition of Slovenia, which gave her a solo appearance with the Slovenian Philharmonic Orchestra. Other concerto performances include the Reykjavik Conservatory of Music Orchestra and Iceland Youth Symphony. In 2017, she was a recipient of the American Scandinavian Society Cultural Grant and the Jean Pierre Jacquillat Foundation Grant.
As a chamber musician, Rannveig has appeared at festivals such as Ravinia, Taos, Open Chamber Music at Prussia Cove, Kneisel Hall and was a member of the Kahlo Quartet, as part of Juilliard’s Honors Chamber Music Program. Other festival appearances include Aspen, Sarasota and the Moritzburg Festival Academy in Germany, where she was concertmaster.
For two years, she was a part of Juilliard’s Gluck Community Service Fellowship, bringing the arts into community centers and health-care facilities in New York in collaborations with dancers and actors. Rannveig graduated with a Bachelor of Music from The Juilliard School in 2018, under the tutelage of Laurie Smukler. She is now pursuing her Master of Music at Juilliard as a proud recipient of the Kovner Fellowship, studying with Donald Weilerstein and Catherine Cho.