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Selma Guðmundsdóttir

Icelandic classical pianist that started studying music in Ísafjörður and graduated as a soloist from the Reykjavík Music School. She studied with Hans Leygraf at the Mozarteum in Salzburg and the University of Music in Hanover (scholarship from the German state, DAAD). In addition, she has attended courses abroad, e.g. with Pierre Sancan in France and Frantisek Rauch in Czechoslovakia. Selma lived for 5 years in Stockholm and then worked e.g. at the Swedish Radio Music School. She has given a number of solo concerts both in Iceland and abroad, played solo with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra and the Trondheim Symphony Orchestra and appeared many times on radio and television. She has worked extensively with other instrumentalists and singers and often performed with the Reykjavík Chamber Orchestra, including at the Bergen Art Festival and on a concert tour around the UK. She has performed regularly with violinist Sigrún Eðvaldsdóttir since 1986, for example at the Young Soloists Music Festival in Helsinki, touring Germany and Lithuania, in Scotland and at Carnegie Hall in New York. In the summer of 2011, they celebrated their 25th anniversary with a concert tour to China where they performed in 8 cities. Selma and Sigrún have released two CDs, Cantabile (1991) and Ljúflingslög (1992). She has played solo works for piano on CD (1992), plays with Áshildur Haraldsdóttir flutist on the CD Miniatures (1995), Kammersveit Reykjavíkur on the CD Kvöldstund with Mozart and Laufeyja Sigurðardóttir violinist on the album Stemma with works by Jórunn Viðar. Collaboration with cellist Gunnar Kvaran began in 1995 and they have held concerts in many places, including playing about 200 concerts for school children. They have released two CDs of Elegía (1996) and Gunnar and Selma (2004) with romantic works for cello and piano. In June 2012, Gunnar and Selma toured China, where they performed in Beijing, Shanghai, Yangzhou and Hangzhou. Selma has also worked with the Norwegian tenor singer Harald Björköy in recent years and held concerts with him in Norway and Iceland. She has also played the piano four hands with the Israeli / Russian pianist Albert Mamriev. She works as a piano teacher at the Reykjavík Music School and as an accompanist / assistant professor at the Iceland Academy of the Arts. She was one of the founders of the Richard Wagner Society in Iceland in 1995 and has been its chairman since the beginning.