Thursday night saw Icelandic composer Ólafur Arnalds brave the warm Perth weather and make his Perth Festival debut at the festival gardens, treating the attentive and patient crowd to a selection of songs from his latest album For Now I Am Winter and more.
Sydney composer Sophie Hutchings opened proceedings with a brief, but lovely set. Drafted into the line-up following the withdrawal of Keaton Henson, Hutchings seemed a little nervous at first, but quickly found her feet – treating the quiet and attentive crowd to a selection of her own compositions, including the beautifully beguiling “Shadowed” from her latest album, Night Sky.
A little bit of patience was required before Arnalds could finally take to the stage. The evening’s warm conditions necessitated a piano re-tuning between sets; a delay, which was extended by the first tuner getting involved in a car accident (they’re okay, by the way). There were also a slight technical issue at the beginning with a misbehaving microphone, but that was resolved pretty quickly – and as the night quickly proved, it was worth the wait.
Accompanied by a string quartet, made up of local musicians, Arnalds quickly set about charming the audience, in a somewhat brief but utterly sublime and captivating performance. Both Arnalds and the quartet were in fine form and working well together, a somewhat impressive feat given they only met and rehearsed together the day before.
“Poland”, a beautifully melancholic piece, from 2011’s Another Happy Day soundtrack was an early high point. Much of the evening’s focus, understandably, was on 2013’s For Now I Am Winter, with a number of its tracks featuring – the highlight of which being a mesmerising rendition of the title track, with Arnor Dan making a special appearance to lend his ethereal and haunting vocals to the live performance. The evening was brought to a close with the very lovely “Ljósið”, a beautiful song originally composed for a bathtub commercial (go figure).
Throughout the night, Arnalds proved himself to not only be an accomplished composer and musician, but also a great host, introducing the songs and regaling the captivated audience about many of the songs beginnings (many seemingly can be put down to too much vodka). For many in the audience, the night’s performance was a long time coming; this is Arnalds’ third visit to Australia, but only his first to Perth – but their patience paid off in the end. Hopefully we won’t have to wait too long before he’s back again.
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