Guðrún Ingimundardóttir

Who I am and where I come from

I was was born 1963 in Húsavík, a small town on the North coast of Iceland. My father is a musician and a folk dancer and I started early to play instruments, sing and dance. In 2009 I got a doctoral degree from the University of Arizona in music composition with a minor in ethnomusicology.

Since I moved back from the US my top priority has been to strengthen Iceland’s fragile musical traditions. In 2013 I lead the creation of Stemma – The Icelandic Traditional Music Association; in 2014 I managed the folk music festival and conference Tradition for Tomorrow in cooperation with The Nordic Council of Traditional Music and Dance of which I am the Icelandic representative. I have led and worked as an expert in international and Nordic projects on folk music and folk dance, given concerts, presentations and workshops about Icelandic traditional music in Iceland and abroad and published three collections of Icelandic folk and quint songs.

I work full time as the vice-principal of a music school and organizing Vaka is what I do in my spare time. But I am not alone - I have a wonderful group of friends who give freely of their time and energy to make Vaka happen. We are office workers, hand crafters, home makers, teachers, accountants, laborers, chefs and farmers, but also traditional musicians and dancers and volunteers preparing for and managing Vaka.

We have not been able to secure all the funding we need to make Vaka the shining festival it should be. Therefore, we send this plea to lovers of traditional music and dance to help us out. We only need €25 (= USD 35) from 160 generous people to come out even.