Short Biography
Coming up...
Born in Hafnarfjörður near the capital of Iceland, Reykjavík in 1957 Stefan started playing music at an early age. At first, he banged on the drums with a fierce interest in Latin music as well as jazz. As a teenager, he started studies at Sigursveins Music School in Iceland on flute.
About 17 he started playing the saxophone and has done that since. After various musical studies, amongst them studies with the legendary Icelandic tenor saxophonist Gunnar Ormslev, Stefan started writing music. His first albums were released with a band called Ljósin í bænum (City lights) a group of friends that Stefan got together to play his music. All in all Ljósin í bænum made two albums. The second one called Disco Frisco (a parody of the Disco era) became extremely popular as a funky disco single. The band was dissolved in 1979. After Ljósin í bænum Stefan did a stint with the very popular band Tivoli, which released the very popular song (still today) Fallinn lyrics and music by Stefán.
1980 Stefan went to Berklee College Of Music USA, to study jazz music. After graduating from Berklee in 1983 Stefan worked as a professional musician full time in Reykjavík, playing, composing, arranging, teaching and raising a family. One boy and two girls.
A spectrum of Stefan's work can be seen in the menus on this site. All the major compositions, major bands he worked with and all the major projects. In these pages you will find playable recordings, lyrics, comments and anything that might be of interest.
Educational work
Stefan has taught as a saxophone, harmony, and theory teacher for many years at FiH Music School and the Icelandic Art College, Menntskoli í Tónlist, as well as his own school: Aerbaer Music School.
Today Stefan is headmaster and owner of a 200-student Arbaer Music School ( Tónlistarskóli Árbæjar ) in Reykjavik.
He is also the founder and creator of an educational encyclopedia web in Icelandic called Tónmenntavefurinn (Web of Music Theory and History.)
Stefan is also the creator and manager of www.tonlistarkennsla.net - An educational site for online pre-college music theory classes, used widely by Icelandic music Schools.
Performing...
Stefan is also a long-time member of the legendary Jazz band Gammar as a composer and saxophonist
He is also playing with his jazz/folk band Vikivaki which plays jazz influenced by icelandic folk songs.
Stefan was selected composer of the year in jazz&blues category at the Icelandic Music Awards in 2015.
His latest album: An Icelander at Alhambra Palace was voted the album of the year in the same category.
Another album with the Reykjavik Big Band is to be released in a few weeks called an Icelander at Uluwatu Temple.
