Hildur Guðnadóttir: Record Release Concert

Hildur Guðnadóttir is an Academy Award winning Icelandic composer, cellist, and singer whose work spans experimental pop, contemporary classical, and film music. She has emerged as one of the most innovative and emotionally resonant voices in modern composition, known for drawing vast sonic landscapes from intimate sources.

Her score for Joker earned her an Academy Award, Golden Globe, BAFTA, and Critics’ Choice Award for Best Original Score. She also won a Primetime Emmy and Grammy for her work on HBO’s Chernobyl, becoming the first solo female composer to win in either category. Other film and television scores include Sicario: Day of the Soldado, Mary Magdalene, Tom of Finland, Journey’s End, and 20 episodes of the Icelandic TV series Trapped (Amazon Prime). In October 2025, Guðnadóttir received the Career Achievement Award at the 21st Zurich Film Festival, further recognising her contributions to contemporary music and film scoring.

October 2025 marked the release of her eagerly awaited studio album for Deutsche Grammophon, Where to From. The album comprises nine intimate and contemplative tracks born from spontaneous musical diary entries originally recorded on her phone. Where to From celebrates the creative power of friendship and collaboration, featuring longtime musical partners including Liam Byrne, Clare O’Connell, Eyvind Kang, Jessika Kenney, and Elsa Torp, with sound engineering by Francesco Donadello and cover art by Gisèle Vienne. Music from the album was commissioned by Volksbühne Berlin, Reykjavík Arts Festival, Barbican Centre and Holland Festival, appearing throughout the 2025/26 season.
  
In 2026, Guðnadóttir’s acts as Associate Artist of the Holland Festival, the Netherlands’ largest and most influential international performing arts event. As part of this prestigious appointment, she presents Where to From alongside a selection of works from her wider repertoire, enriched by immersive light art from Theresa Baumgartner and supported through a major coproduction with the festival across multiple dates including Chernobyl, Nærmynd, new commissioned work Passing Remarks and other events celebrating all aspects of her output. 

Guðnadóttir also appears as Artist in Residence at the Reykjavík Arts Festival in June 2026, offering a trilogy of performances that demonstrates the depth and range of her practice. These include a curated programme with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra at Eldborg Hall, the Icelandic premiere of Where to From at Harpa’s Silfurberg, and a collaborative concert with the Hallgrímskirkja Choir — all serving as a powerful prelude to her expanded vision at the Holland Festival. 

Looking ahead to the 2026/27 season, Guðnadóttir unveils This Will Be Us, her new symphonic project celebrating 20 years from her first album Mount A. The project was recorded for Deutsche Grammophon in collaboration with Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin and is marking a major expansion of her largescale concert work. The album launch is presented on 25 October 2026 at the Berlin Philharmonie and further performances include Oslo Opera House, De Singel and across 2027/28 season. 

Guðnadóttir’s solo discography includes four critically acclaimed albums—Mount A (2006), Without Sinking (2009), Leyfðu Ljósinu (2012), and Saman (2014)—all now available under the Deutsche Grammophon imprint, as well as her extended single  Iridescence and the soundtracks for Chernobyl (2019) and TÁR (2022).

2026 sees also xGuðnadóttir writing the original score for the National Theatre production of Electra Persona, under the direction of Benedict Andrews. The production stars Cate Blanchett, Nina Hoss and Ella Lily Hyland and is on between 19 August and 10 October. 

She has composed for institutions including the Iceland Symphony Orchestra, National Theatre of Iceland, Tate Modern, British Film Institute, Royal Swedish Opera, Gothenburg National Theatre, and the BBC Proms. She has performed and recorded with artists including Jóhann Jóhannsson, Ryuichi Sakamoto, The Knife, Fever Ray, and Throbbing Gristle. Currently, she is composing a new orchestral work commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, to be performed on 18 February 2027 at the Walt Disney Concert Hall.

Born in Reykjavík in 1982, she studied at the Reykjavík Music Academy, Iceland Academy of the Arts, and Universität der Künste Berlin. She currently resides in Berlin. 

The Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin (DSO) was highlighted by the renowned national newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung as the “orchestral think tank” among the capital city’s orchestras. It is characterized by the rich dramaturgy of its concert programmes, its commitment to contemporary music and regular discoveries of repertoire, as well as the courage to pursue unusual music presentation formats. The DSO has set innovative impulses with electro projects, the production of extraordinary music films, interdisciplinary cooperation and collaboration with ensembles on the independent scene. With its moderated casual concerts including lounge and live act, it has been successfully building a bridge between club and classical music for over 15 years, reaching a broad and diverse audience. Since 2014, it has been bringing amateur musicians together with professionals to form Berlin’s largest spontaneous orchestra, the ‘Symphonic Mob’ – a concept that is now also licensed throughout Europe.

In the 2023/2024 season, the DSO attracted worldwide attention with a feminist music policy initiative under the motto ‘No Concert Without a Female Composer!’; in 2024/2025 it underlined the positioning for an open society and the advocacy for marginalized groups in various concert programmes with the campaign ‘Orchestra for Democracy’. The DSO remained true to this self-image in the 2025/2026 season: under the title ‘Afrodiaspora – Composing While Black’, it became the first orchestra worldwide to place the music of Black composers at the centre of its programming, commissioned new works, and presented cellist Abel Selaocoe as “Artist in Focus”.

With its many guest performances, the DSO is present on the national and international music scene. The orchestra has performed in recent years in Brazil and Argentina, in Japan, China, Malaysia, Abu Dhabi and Eastern Europe, as well as at major festivals such as the Salzburg Festival or BBC Proms. The DSO also has a global presence with numerous award-winning CD recordings. In 2011, it received the Grammy Award for the world premiere recording of Kaija Saariaho’s opera ‘L’amour de loin’ conducted by Kent Nagano.

Founded as the RIAS Symphony Orchestra in 1946, it was renamed the Radio Symphony Orchestra Berlin in 1956 and has borne its current name since 1993. Since its inception, the DSO has been able to retain outstanding artist personalities. As the first Music Director, Ferenc Fricsay defined the standards in terms of repertoire, acoustic ideal and media presence. In 1964, the young Lorin Maazel assumed artistic responsibility. In 1982, he was followed by Riccardo Chailly and in 1989 by Vladimir Ashkenazy. Kent Nagano was appointed Music Director in 2000. Since his departure in 2006, he has been associated with the orchestra as a Conductor Laureate. From 2007 to 2010, Ingo Metzmacher, from 2012 to 2016, Tugan Sokhiev, and from 2017 to 2024, Robin Ticciati set decisive accents in the musical life of the capital. They will be succeeded by the Japanese Kazuki Yamada, who will lead the DSO as Music Director from the start of the 2026/2027 season.

The Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin is an ensemble of the Radio Orchestra and Choirs gGmbH (ROC Berlin). The shareholders are Deutschlandradio, the Federal Republic of Germany, the State of Berlin and Radio Berlin-Brandenburg.