Mystery Sonata, the duo of Mina Gajić, piano, and Zachary Carrettin, violin, will perform

By Peter Alexander Feb. 5 at 6 p.m.

The duo Mystery Sonata, comprising pianist Mina Gajić and violinist Zachary Carrettin, will present a program of new music from Iceland at the Gordon Game Theater Saturday (4 p.m. Feb. 10, Dairy Arts Center).

The program carries the title “Aequora,” a Latin word meaning the calm, even surface of the sea. As executive director and music director respectively of the Boulder Bach Festival, Gajić and Carrettin often perform together on the festival’s concert series. In this case they are playing works from a niche of the contemporary repertoire that is little known in the United States, including works that were specifically written for them. 

Composers on the program are Anna Thorvaldsdóttir, Páll Ragnar Pálsson, Daníel Bjarnason and María Huld Markan Sigfúsdóttir. All are living composers in their 40s who began their music studies in their native Iceland but have gone on to carve out international careers in music. Thorvaldsdóttir had graduate studies in the United States at  the University of California, San Diego, and won the 2012 Nordic Council Music Prize.

Bjarnason has a relationship with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, who have commissioned and premiered several of his works. Conductors who have performed his orchestral works include Gustavo Dudamel, John Adams and James Conlon. 

The youngest of the four composers, Sigfúsdóttir has worked as a violinist in a string quartet, as a member of the Icelandic band Amiina, with pop artists including Sigur Rós and Lee Hazelwood, and on film soundtracks. The title of the program derives from her work for orchestra,  Aequora. 

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“Aequora”
Mystery Sonata: Mina Gajić, piano, and Zachary Carrettin, violin

• Music by Anna Thorvaldsdóttir, Páll Ragnar Pálsson, Daníel Bjarnason and María Huld Markan Sigfúsdóttir

4 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 10
Gordon Gamm Theater, Dairy Arts Center

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