An estimated 32,000 people attended the open house at Harpa, the new concert and conference center on the Reykjavík seaside, last weekend. The Multicultural Day in Reykjavík on Saturday was also well attended.
From Eldborg, the largest music hall in Harpa. Photo by Geir Ólafsson.
Mayor Jón Gnarr opened the festival by Hallgrímskirkja church and afterwards there was a parade down Skólavördustígur and to the City Hall by the pond, Morgunbladid reports.
Multicultural events were held there in the evening and in Idnó there was a multicultural marketplace. A children’s choir from Lithuania performed, as did dancers from Poland, Peru, Bulgaria and Turkey.
The purpose of the festival is to celebrate the diverse culture which has been created in Reykjavík now that people from many different cultural backgrounds have settled there.
Yesterday, a special children’s day was held in Harpa. “It was so enjoyable to watch the hall fill up with children and their families,” commented Steinunn Birna Ragnarsdóttir, the concert center’s musical director.
“The building came alive in a new way and you saw the country’s next generation—the generation which think it a matter of course to own this building,” she added.
Click here to read more about the opening festival.
