Thorkell Sigurbjörnsson

Thorkell Sigurbjörnsson (1938–2013) studied at Hamline University in Minnesota before graduating from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1961, where his instructors included Lejaren Hiller and Kenneth Gaburo. Returning to Iceland in 1962, he taught piano, musicology, and music history at the Reykjavík College of Music, hosted a regular radio program on RÚV, and chaired the Icelandic Composers’ Society from 1983 to 1987, becoming the country’s most prolific composer with more than 350 works spanning children’s songs to orchestral pieces, including his best-known setting of the medieval hymn “Heyr, himna smiður” (1973).