Sigur Rós on teaming up with the SCO to bring their 'orchestral odyssey' to Scotland
Later this month, post-rock pioneers Sigur Rós will collaborate with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra for performances in Edinburgh and Glasgow. The band’s Kjartan Sveinsson tells Fiona Shepherd what’s in store
For Sigur Rós’s multi-tasking keyboard and guitar player Kjartan Sveinsson, the band’s most recent album Átta (“eight” in Icelandic) was a fateful piece of work. Sveinsson had been a core member of the Icelandic group for 15 years when he chose to step back from the line-up in 2013 to concentrate on his scoring work for film and television.
“It was never my intention to go back to the band but it just happened really,” he says. Sveinsson responded to a pre-pandemic invite from his former bandmate, Sigur Rós frontman Jónsi Birgisson, to jam with him in Los Angeles during downtime for the band. They picked up the thread again post-pandemic. “Later we figured this might be a good Sigur Rós album and so we brought Georg [bassist Georg Hólm] in and released the album and went on tour.
By “went on tour”, Sveinsson means three years of touring the world collaborating with different orchestras at every single performance. This was no symphonic retrofit - as the album took shape with only minimal drumming, the idea to orchestrate its ethereality took hold. Sveinsson arranged the music with his wife Maria Huld Markan Sigfúsdóttir who plays in Amiina, the string quartet who have performed regularly with Sigur Rós over the years, and the fully orchestrated album was recorded at Abbey Road Studios with conductor Robert Ames.
Ames is the one constant in an orchestral odyssey about to reach its conclusion. Fresh from helming the BBC’s first ever Prog Rock Proms, he will conduct a final European leg of the tour which opens in Scotland with two concerts featuring the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. “We could not do this unless we had someone like him to do this with us,” says Sveinsson. “He’s very organized and he gets it in shape every time. He’s a very positive person and really makes it happen.
“If you look on paper at what we’ve written it looks very simple and easy but there are so many small nuances in the music that need to be performed properly so what I expect and hope for each orchestra is that people are open and arrive without prejudice and play as well as they can. It does look easy but it isn’t easy, a lot of this is very delicate stuff.”
Despite the specificity of playing every time with a 41-piece orchestra, Sveinsson notes “subtle differences” between the symphony orchestras and philharmonias with which they have worked so far. He is looking forward to meeting and working with the SCO and the sopranos and altos from the SCO Chorus, not least because this will be a rare incidence of the band working with an orchestra on consecutive occasions, with an opportunity to deepen their rapport over the two performances at Edinburgh Playhouse and Glasgow’s Armadillo (both venues Sigur Rós have played before without their classical pals).
“We have tried to integrate ourselves into the orchestra,” says Sveinsson of the stage dynamic on this tour. “It’s not like a rock band and an orchestra behind some plexiglass that nobody hears, that’s not what we are doing. We are centre stage but around us is the whole orchestra so it’s not like a rock band with some extras. We are trying to do it as tastefully as we can.”
For the SCO, this major collaboration is part of a culture of supporting and promoting contemporary music that is set to continue with the New Dimensions series announced as part of the 2026/2027 season, presenting works by contemporary titans Philip Glass and John Adams alongside young(er) bucks such as Max Richter and Radiohead guitarist/composer Jonny Greenwood with proven crossover appeal in an informal concert format.
The Sigur Rós shows should also break some barriers, possibly introducing some fans of the band to their first live orchestral experience while allowing the SCO to revel in the electricity of a “rock” show, even if Sigur Rós have never been your conventional rock band. Like their fellow Icelandic visionary Bjork, they approach music in a more elemental way. Although they have never netted a commercial hit single nor a Grammy Award, they enjoy a global reputation as pioneers of post-rock - characterized by sweeping sonic vistas, untethered from traditional rock forms or influences. It has often been said that they evoke the volatile majesty of their native Icelandic landscape with Jónsi’s falsetto vocals an animalistic call from the crags.
SCO cellist Donald Gillan captures their appeal well. “I’ve been a fan of Sigur Rós for many years,” he says. “As a cellist myself I am drawn to their imaginative and very moving use of orchestral instrumentation in their arrangements. There is an epic power to their music, as well as a transcendent, other-worldly quality. It’s an absolute thrill to have the opportunity to share the stage and play along with the band.’
In addition to a selection of tracks from Átta, Sveinsson promises some setlist surprises including “songs that have never been performed before that weren’t really optimal to perform in a rock’n’roll setting. This is about listening a bit more than you would have to in a normal gig setting when it’s a lot about feel and loudness and getting that kick to the stomach."
Fans can also look forward to old orchestrated favourites such as Starálfur (meaning “staring elf”) from their second album Ágætis byrjun (“a good beginning”) and their hit-not-hit Hoppípolla, which has been the gateway song for many a Sigur acolyte, best known for its use in the BBC’s landmark 2006 series Planet Earth and numerous other soundtracks and still a prime example of their trademark epic build.
Where that trademark sound goes next is anyone’s guess. Sigur Rós are not a career band with schedules filled for years in advance. Sveinsson isn’t even sure if this will be his last hurrah in the group. “We haven’t really had a chance to talk about it,” he says. “Maybe it’s the last tour, maybe we’ll do another album. We’ll have to see.” As for this tour, he only harbours good memories. “All good things must end at some point. It’s been really really fun for me.”
Sigur Rós and the SCO are at the Edinburgh Playhouse, 31 August, and the Armadillo, Glasgow on 2 September. This feature was produced in association with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra.
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