Aurora

SATB and Soprano Soloist

Though often seen as the far-flung outpost of the North, Iceland is as deeply woven into the Nordic fabric as any of its continental neighbors. Settled in the ninth century by Norwegians and Celts, its language remains the closest living descendant of Old Norse, preserving the sound and syntax that once bound the Viking world together.  

Iceland’s greatest modern musical export is the singer, composer, and producer Björk, whose boundary-defying work spans pop, electronic, and the avant-garde. Since emerging from the alternative scene of the 1990s, she has sold over 40 million records and become one of the most original voices in contemporary music.  I’ve long been a fan of her music, so when Choral Arts Northwest asked me to arrange her song, Aurora, for a program they were doing consisting of Nordic-infused repertoire, I jumped at the chance.

The song seems to express the Icelandic people’s deep kinship with the elemental forces of the natural world which Björk conveys by offering a heartfelt act of worship to a nature goddess who seems to dwell somewhere in a mountain sheathed in glacial ice.  My version strips the song to its essentials to reimagine it as something of a cross between a Schubert lieder and a wintry choral anthem.

Aurora was commissioned by Choral Arts Northwest (Dr.  Timothy Westerhaus, Artistic Director) and received its premiere at the National Nordic Museum in Seattle on December 18, 2025 as part of the ensemble’s Nordic Jul concert series.

The Text 

By Björk Guðmundsdóttir (b. 1965)

Treading the glacier head
Looking hard for
Moments of shine
From twilight to twilight

Utter mundane

Aurora
Goddess sparkle
Shoot me
Beyond this suffer
The need is great
Aurora

Utter mundane

Aurora
Goddess sparkle
A mountain shade
Suggests your shape

I tumbled down
On my knees
Fill the mouth
With snow

The way it melts
I wish
To melt into you
Aurora

Utter mundane

Spark the sun off me