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Tell me about the concerts you are playing in Harpa this weekend.

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I'm playing the six solo cello suites by Bach. They're really the most famous works written for the cello. I performed all of them in a concert tour around Iceland which I have been planning for a long time. I wanted to finish the tour by playing all six suites in Harpa, three on Saturday and three on Sunday. I graduated from school last year, when Covid had just hit, and had to think about what I wanted to do. I felt like it was a good opportunity to learn all the suites. I had learned some of them before but not all and had always had the dream to play them here at home. I wasn't really able to play with other people during this time period so I could really dedicate myself to preparing this.

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Is there a particular reason you are so taken with the Bach Suites?

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When I was a teenager and first really discovering classical music Bach was my favorite composer. These are foundational pieces for any cellist. The suites are varied, each one has its own key and a strong character, distinct from the others. They are challenging in a very complete way, you both have to practice a lot but then they are very demanding psychologically, it's such a long and large project. So, it was really a big challenge to perform them all.

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How has the concert tour gone?

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It's gone very well. It was obviously a lot of work to present and perform the music and drive around from place to place. But it was very fun, and I got to know places I had never been to before. It was the first solo tour I've ever done so I learned a great deal.

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What's next for you?

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I graduated with my master's in spring of last year and now I'm starting post-graduate studies at the Royal Academy of Music in London. I'll get a lot of practice performing regularly. Then I'm also a member of a string quartet in New York, where I was studying before. Then I'll try and come home and play a lot here.

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Translated from Icelandic by Geirþrúður Anna Guðmundsdóttir.