# About Halldór Úlfarsson

Halldór Úlfarsson (b. Iceland, 1977) is an artist, designer and instrument builder whose work centres on the halldorophone, an electroacoustic string instrument he has developed since 2008. First realised as his MFA graduation piece at what is now Aalto University in Helsinki, the instrument has grown from a single prototype into a small family of hand-built commissions, each one refined through close collaboration with the musicians who play them. Among these is Hildur Guðnadóttir, whose use of the halldorophone as her primary instrument brought it to global attention through her Academy Award and Emmy-winning scores for Joker and Chernobyl.

Since 2021 Halldór has been the resident instrument designer and fabricator at the [Intelligent Instruments Lab](https://www.iil.is) (IIL) at the University of Iceland, where he is part of INTENT — a five-year, ERC Consolidator-funded research programme led by Thor Magnusson that embeds machine intelligence in musical instruments and investigates how humans feel about using them.

[Download CV](../assets/img/CV-Ulfarsson.pdf)

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### Interviews

[Halldór Úlfarsson — Bela Blog (2025)](https://blog.bela.io/halldor-25-interview/) — A wide-ranging conversation covering the origins of the halldorophone, its fabrication and evolution over nearly two decades, the role of embedded DSP in later instruments, and the underlying philosophy of feedback as a musical premise.

[Halldorophone — Designboom (2024)](https://www.designboom.com/technology/cello-electro-acoustic-string-instrument-halldorophone-feedback-halldor-ulfarsson-07-26-2024/) — A feature in the design press covering the instrument's feedback mechanism, its exhibition at Sónar+D 2024, and the Bela-powered IIL research instrument.

[Straumar — RÚV, interviewed by Árni Matthíasson (2025)](https://www.ruv.is/utvarp/spila/straumar/34464/a8lij2) *(in Icelandic)*

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### More

[Visiting Researcher: Halldór Úlfarsson — Emute Lab (2015)](https://www.emutelab.org/blog/halldor-ulfarsson) — An announcement from the Music Informatics and Performance Technologies Lab at the University of Sussex, where Halldór gave talks and masterclasses as a visiting researcher.

[Halldorophone — Bela Blog (2019)](https://blog.bela.io/halldorophone/) — A maker-focused feature on the integration of Bela into the halldorophone, opening the instrument to onboard DSP for the first time.

[This Strange Instrument from Joker Soundtrack Was Invented in Finland — Aalto University (2020)](https://www.aalto.fi/en/news/this-strange-instrument-from-joker-soundtrack-was-invented-in-finland) — A news piece covering the halldorophone's origins at what is now Aalto University, published in the wake of the Joker Oscar.

[Halldorophone: Interview with Creator Halldór Úlfarsson — KitMonsters (2020)](https://kitmonsters.com/blog/halldorophone-interview-with-creator-halldor-ulfarsson) — A gear-site interview covering the origins of the halldorophone, sympathetic strings, and the Joker moment.

[Adam Weiler Award Winner — PGR Connections, University of Sussex (2020)](https://doctoralconnections.wordpress.com/2020/10/05/interview-halldor-ulfarsson-adam-weiler-award-winner/) — A brief interview on the PhD research and the Adam Weiler Impact Award.

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