Biografie
Hildur Gudnadóttir is an Academy Award-, Golden Globe-, Grammy-, BAFTA-, and Emmy-winning Icelandic artist, who has been manifesting herself at the forefront of experimental pop and contemporary music. In her solo works, she draws out a broad spectrum of sounds from her instrumentation, ranging from intimate simplicity to huge soundscapes.
Her work for film and television includes “Sicario: Day of the Soldado,” “Mary Magdalene,” and the critically acclaimed HBO series “Chernobyl,” for which she won the Primetime Emmy Award in the Outstanding Music Composition for a Limited Series, Movie or Special category, as well as a Grammy Award in the Best Score Soundtrack For Visual Media category. In addition, her body of work includes scores for films such as “Tom of Finland,” “Journey’s End” and 20 episodes of the Icelandic TV series “Trapped,” streaming on Amazon Prime.
Gudnadóttir began playing cello as a child, entered the Reykjavík Music Academy and then moved on to musical studies/composition and new media at the Iceland Academy of the Arts and Universität der Künste Berlin.
She has released four critically acclaimed solo albums: Mount A (2006), Without Sinking (2009), Leyfðu Ljósinu (2012) and Saman (2014). Her records have been nominated a number of times for the Icelandic Music Awards. Her albums are all released on Touch.
She has composed music for theatre, dance performances and films. The Icelandic Symphony Orchestra, Icelandic National Theatre, Tate Modern, The British Film Institute, The Royal Swedish Opera in Stockholm and Gothenburg National Theatre are amongst the institutions that have commissioned new works from her. She was nominated for the Nordic Music Council Prize as composer of the year 2014.
Gudnadóttir has performed live and recorded music with Skúli Sverrisson, Jóhann Jóhannsson, múm, Sunn O))), Pan Sonic, Hauschka, Wildbirds & Peacedrums, Ryuichi Sakamoto, David Sylvian, The Knife, Fever Ray and Throbbing Gristle, among others.
Gudnadóttir received a Golden Globe, BAFTA and Academy Award for her work on “Joker”. The Society of Composers & Lyricists awarded her scores for “Joker” and “Chernobyl” at this year’s inaugural ceremony.
In 2019 she was named Television Composer of the Year at the World Soundtrack Awards in Gent.
Gudnadóttir lives in Berlin, Germany.
