Ice Music in Swedish Lapland: Tim Linhart's Ice Instruments and Igloo Hall

In Swedish Lapland there is a concert hall made of ice where the orchestra plays violins, cellos, guitars and drums carved from ice too. Ice Music is the creation of Tim Linhart, an American ice artist who built his first ice instrument in 1998 and now lives in Luleå, on the Gulf of Bothnia.

Tim Linhart and the first ice instruments

Linhart has worked with ice as an artistic material for more than three decades. The idea for ice instruments came in Colorado, when a friend who built guitars asked whether one could be made of ice. His first attempt, a giant bass, burst when he tightened the strings too far.

Later he was invited to Sweden to work with the Icehotel, where he built an ice pipe organ with 56 pipes and a whole ice orchestra. Since then he has designed and built nine ice concert halls seating between 85 and 350 people, and staged Ice Music concerts in the United States, Italy and Sweden.

How an ice violin or guitar is made

Every instrument is carved by hand. For a guitar, Linhart forms the front and back plates from ice and leaves them to freeze overnight, then carves the details and builds up ice between the plates to make the body. A neck, bridge and strings complete it.

The ensemble covers the instrument families of a regular band and string section: violins, violas, cellos and a contrabass, banjos, mandolins and guitars, drum kits and xylophones. Linhart has also invented his own, such as the Graviton, a 37-string instrument hung with steel plates, and the Rolandophone, a percussion instrument with 44 pipes.

Inside the ice concert hall

The hall itself is part of the show. Linhart's design uses two spherical igloos for the audience around a recessed central stage, with walls sprayed with water to give a smooth finish. Vents at the top of each dome let warm air escape, holding the temperature at about minus 5°C, cold enough to keep the ice instruments from melting.

Coloured lights and projections turn the ice into a glowing "cosmic igloo" that changes with the music, so musicians, translucent walls and light all share the stage.

Ice Music seasons in Luleå

The concerts run in the depths of winter. The season shown in these photographs ran from late December 2013 to early April 2014; in 2015 the concerts ran from mid-January to 28 March, with tickets sold through Kulturens Hus, Luleå's house of culture.

Dress for the cold: Ice Music advises three layers of clothing plus gloves and a hat for a concert at minus 5°C.

Luleå is the capital of Norrbotten, Sweden's northernmost county, and a good base for exploring Swedish Lapland in winter. Before you go, check Ice Music for the current season. Explore more: weather-inspired design with electronic sound and more approaches to temporary ice art.

Related reading

• Terje Isungset: Ice Instruments, Voice and the Craft Before the Concert
• Shout Out Louds’ Blue Ice Record Project
• Lake Baikal Ice Percussion with irkDarbuka
• Mike Taylor’s Maine Aurora Photography and a Change of Direction
• Finnish Lapland in Winter: Forests, Light and Snow-Covered Landscapes

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