After the young Icelander Álfheiður Erla Guðmundsdóttir has completed her Bachelor's degree with distinction, she will complete her studies at the Hanns Eisler Academy of Music in Berlin in 2021 with a Master of Music.
She is a prizewinner of the International Haydn Competition and the International Perotti Singing Competition. In addition, the successful young singer has received many scholarships, was a Britten-Pears Young Artist and has attended master classes with Anne Sofie von Otter, Véronique Gens, Susan Manoff, Piotr Beczala, Matthew Rose, Hartmut Höll and Emma Kirkby, among others.
Early on, she sought to break new ground and build bridges between music and the visual arts. In 2019, together with pianist Eleonora Pertz, she was selected by the prestigious Academy Orsay-Royaumont, which is instrumental in fostering a new generation of Lied duos - the same year she participated in a master class for young musicians led by Renée Fleming at the SongStudio at Carnegie Hall, exploring innovative approaches to classical and contemporary Lied repertoire, which was followed by an
invitation to perform in the 2020 Carnegie Hall Citywide Concert Series with pianist Kunal Lahiry followed*. In 2021, she was honored as Singer of the Year in the contemporary and classical music category at the Icelandic Music Awards and represented her home country in the world-renowned BBC Cardiff Singer of the World 2021 competition *.
During her studies, Álfheiður Erla Guðmundsdóttir has already worked successfully with conductors such as Alondra de la Parra, Daníel Bjarnason and Fabio Biondi.
at the Berlin State Opera in the title role of Snow White (Wolfgang Mitterer/ /Engelbert Humperdinck), Papagena/ Magic Flute as well as in the BAROCKTAGE 2019 at the State Opera, in Scarlatti's "La Vergine Addolorata" with the Akademie für Alte Musik.
She has also appeared in various productions such as the short opera "Tolleranzia" by Axel Chorny (Deutsche Oper Berlin/ Tischlerei), Poppea/ L'incoronazione di Poppea (Freiraum Berlin), Hannchen/
Vetter aus Dingsda (Theater Altenburg Gera), Susanna/ Le nozze di Figaro (Uferstudios Berlin), Marzelline/Fidelio (Liszt Academy of Music, Budapest), Flaminia/ Il mondo della luna (HfM Berlin) and
Poppea/ Agrippina (Radialsystem Berlin).
In 2020 she sang Echo/ Ariadne auf Naxos * at L'Opéra National de Montpellier and debuted with the role of the Angel in the premiere at Theater Basel of Olivier Messiaens' Saint
François d'Assise under Clemens Heil and directed by Benedikt von Peter. In 2021 followed an invitation to the Theater Dortmund for the premiere of Austrian composer Bernhard Lang's opera Der Hetzer, which premieres this fall.
Since the 21/22 season, Álfheiður Erla Guðmundsdóttir has been a permanent ensemble member at Theater Basel, where she has appeared in such roles as The Magic Flute, Don Carlos, a staged St. Matthew Passion, Philip
Glass' "Einstein on the Beach" and in the premiere of a drama opera based on the Krabat saga.
* Cancellation due to Corona