Considerable research has been done on the lives of Icelanders who emigrated to America before and around 1900. Articles and books have been written detailing their daily life; farming, fishing, their endless journeys, hardship and not the least, genealogy – Icelanders’ favourite pastime. However, aside from literary activities, artistic life and culture of these people has received little attention.

Some years ago we came across an article, written by Gísli Jónsson in 1951, that lists 15 emigrating Icelanders who, to a various extent, composed music. Some research on the subject has revealed close to 100 names of people who were musically active in the community of Icelanders in Canada during the first decades of settlement.

We have travelled a few times to Canada where we have interviewed relatives of some of these people, collected documents and other information, even discovered some precious items that otherwise would have been forever lost. We have also lectured on the subject, both in Canada and in Iceland.

We are determined to research this topic further and strongly believe that more information is to be found – with relatives, friends and elsewhere. We are looking for data and documents that can shed new light on the history of Canadian-Icelanders, and may serve the purpose of honouring the memory of these people. In the current phase of our research, we are primarily looking for music-related information. We are, however, also curious with respect to other artistic activities that we know flourished amongst these people – art, photography, film making, theatre, literature and even musical instrument builders. Items of interest and value that come to light should be preserved wherever deemed most appropriate; information, photographs and documents we want to duplicate and publish in a specially designed database, accessible to all via the Internet.

In an attempt to reach people that might assist us in this project, we have constructed this web site where we list the names we have found, organised under the categories seen here on the left: Art, Instrument Builders, Music, Photographs / Films and Theatre. At the outset we limit the scope of our research to the earliest years of settlement and through the first decades of the 20th century. We know next to nothing about some of these people, on others we have more information.

We urge all who might have any relevant information to contact us! We are interested in everything that relates to this people; in particular, as noted above, knowledge, documents, and items that pertain to their musical activities – oral accounts (stories, memories), manuscripts, published compositions, written correspondence, concert programs, sound recordings, films, writings in books, information that has appeared in newspapers or in other printed form.

    Bjarki Sveinbjörnsson

E-mail: bjarki@musik.is

Phone: +354 824 6413

    Jón Hrólfur Sigurjónsson

E-mail: hrolfur@musik.is

Phone: +354 821 6413