Laufey concert review: Icelandic jazz-pop star thrills in 2nd night with Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra

Icelandic jazz-pop singer Laufey might only be 25 years old, but her songs of love, hope, betrayal and heartache evoke an era much older that, without feeling dated.

In a show lasting about an hour and 45 minutes Tuesday, Laufey (pronouncedlay-vay) teamed with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra for a second sold-out night at Heinz Hall, demonstrating exactly why her star is rising.

Laufey, whose “Bewitched” won this year’s Grammy for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album, bridged jazz, classical and pop music, as she switched from guitar to cello to piano through the night.

“I grew up loving classical music, loving jazz music and not feeling like I had a community of young people that shared my passion and love for it,” she said. “To get to see all of you gathered here with me today is just the most beautiful thing in the world.”

Addressing the audience, which skewed younger than a normal symphony crowd in part thanks to her TikTok fame, Laufey noted they didn’t need to be too stodgy despite the tony environment.

“This concert’s a little different. It’s a little bit more casual. You don’t have to be too formal,” she said. “Obviously, common etiquette does apply. I’m not asking you to take your shirt off or anything. Anyways, enjoy the show.”

Laufey entertained the receptive audience with the backstories behind songs like “Beautiful Stranger” and “Bored,” as well as “Dear Soulmate,” which she said hasn’t been played much this year.

”This song, I wrote it when I was 21. I’m 25 now, so I’m really old now,” she said, drawing laughs. “Back when I was a young and wistful dreamer, before the music industry aged me, I wrote this song as a letter to my future soulmate.”

On songs such as “Dreamer” and “While You Were Sleeping,” Laufey needed no instruments as she crooned, with her expressive eyes and body language complementing her performance. Her rich, powerful voice never strained, proving a bewitching and haunting instrument in itself.

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Her relationship vulnerability was on display in “California and Me,” which looks at the aftermath of a failed romance, and “Promise,” which includes the lyric of “It hurts to be something. It’s worse to be nothing with you.”

Yet the celebration of a new love in “Bewitched” or the optimism of finding love in the future, as in the seeking of fairy-tale romance of “Like the Movies,” never disappeared.

The Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra augmented Laufey’s compositions without overstepping. It felt notably stirring on “Valentine” and “Promise,” with its most powerful moments coming during a huge buildup in “Goddess.” Calling it her most honest song, the lyrics delve into a man’s perception of her on-stage vs. the stark difference off-stage: “I can’t even tell who you want to know. I’m a goddess on stage, human when we’re alone.”

While the ending of “Goddess” earned the loudest ovation, that may have been surpassed by the last song of the regular set.

“There’s a part of this song that you’re going to want to sing along to, but you’re going to feel like you’re going to be scared because you’re in this formal setting,” she said. “I’m telling you right now: Don’t be scared.”

The crowd singalong of “From the Start,” arguably Laufey’s biggest hit, washed over the room, with a particularly emphatic “blah blah blah” on the line of “Oh, the burning pain, listening to you harp on ‘bout some new soulmate, ‘she’s so perfect,’ blah, blah, blah.”

After a brief exit, Laufey returned for an encore of two songs, with just her and her guitar as the symphony watched. First came “Bored,” followed by “Letter to My 13 Year Old Self.” In the finale, she lists some of the traits that she thought were holding her back as a teen but wound up making her career today.

“I was an orchestra nerd,” Laufey said before catching herself, looking back at her backing musicians and adding “which was fine. I still am. And I was really scared of boys. I still am, too.”