Skúli Sverrisson (lowercase night #59)

Skúli Sverrisson
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Layers of pulsating strings. Streams of cinematic texture. Expanses of heartfelt melody. These are all aspects of the musical world of Skúli Sverrisson, a twenty-first century composer and multi-instrumentalist from Iceland who has united broad swaths of contemporary music into a unique personal language. Sverrisson´s music is as warm-hearted as it is advanced. Though it bears the mark of a master musician’s life experience in a wide range of jazz, rock and new music, it maintains a folk-like directness of expression and a pop-like seductiveness.

His Sería music is a set of hypnotic, labyrinthine songs – dense webs of fingerpicked guitars and basses, mostly played by Skúli and Amadeo Pace (Blonde Redhead), with broad waves of strings by Eyvind Kang (Bill Frisell, Sunn OO) and Hildur Gudnadottir (Pan Sonic, Nico Muhly) and bass clarinets, pedal steel and keyboards by Anthony Burr (LaMonte Young, Klangforum Wien) as well as exquisite vocals by Ólöf Arnalds.

Skúli Sverrisson´s collaborators in the past include improvisers Wadada Leo Smith, Arve Henriksen and Sidsel Endrisen, music icons Jon Hassel, David Sylvian, Arto Lindsey and composers Ryuichi Sakamoto, Johann Johannsson and Eyvind Kang. Sverrisson is also known for his work as an artistic director for Olof Arnalds, recordings with Blonde Redhead and as a musical director for legendary performance artist Laurie Anderson.

His recent work includes Kaldur Solargeisli for voice and orchestra, performed by Olof Arnalds and the Icelandic Symphony Orchestra,
conducted by IIan Volkov. Skúli composed the solo piano piece Miranda for Víkingur Heiðar Ólafsson which was premiered this summer.

Skúli´s music was recently featured Alejandro Iñárritu´s The Revenant and he also collaborated with Jóhann Jóhannsson on his score for the film Sicario.

Skúli has received seven Icelandic Music Awards and has been nominated twice for the Nordic Council Music Price.

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On Sunday (20.08), Skúli will live score a movie of his choice.
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Expect beauty