Icelandic composer and cellist Hildur Guðnadóttir is a part of a wave of European composers who’ve entered the world of movie music from backgrounds in fashionable classical, experimental and live performance music. They embody Volker Bertelmann, Jerskin Fendrix, Daniel Blumberg, Max Richter and Kangding Ray — all of whom, like Guðnadóttir, landed on this yr’s Oscars shortlist for Greatest Unique Rating.
But when Guðnadóttir is in some methods a part of a thriving group that has put a daring spin on movie music, she’s additionally a rarity as the one girl on this century to win the Oscar for a movie rating, and considered one of solely three feminine composers to ever do it. (The primary two have been Rachel Portman and Anne Dudley, who gained for “Emma” and “The Full Monty” within the Nineteen Nineties, in the course of the four-year existence of a separate Greatest Unique Musical or Comedy Rating class.)
Guðnadóttir gained for 2019’s “Joker,” and has since composed scores for movies together with “Tár” and “Girls Speaking.” She additionally got here three-quarters of the best way to an EGOT within the span of a few yr, successful an Emmy for “Chernobyl” and Grammys for each “Joker” and “Chernobyl.”
Her newest movie is Nia DaCosta’s “Hedda,” which transplants Henrik Ibsen’s late Nineteenth-century play “Hedda Gabler” to Fifties England and lets the whole motion play out over the course of a raucous get together at an enormous property. Music performs a central half within the wild soiree, which helped Guðnadóttir focus the movie’s strategy to music. However as she instructed TheWrap in a current dialog, it additionally led her in daring instructions that included turning the movie’s crew right into a makeshift choir, and recording them as all of them stood round a shattered chandelier that fell to the ground throughout one significantly dramatic scene.
Did the truth that the whole film was set in a single location over one evening affect the musical vocabulary you used?
Positively, it actually did. And since it’s a celebration and you’ve got the band enjoying and it’s a interval piece, the band is clearly going to be enjoying music from that interval. So that actually set the parameters fairly strongly. I believe it’s actually thrilling when you have got a body to work in and you must work out how one can benefit from what you have got. Reasonably than bringing in an orchestra and blowing issues out, sound-wise, how can I preserve it on this planet of those folks and this band?
That’s at all times probably the most thrilling half once you begin engaged on a movie: to think about, what’s the sound world we’re in? On this case, I needed to lean into the truth that they have been enjoying jazz music, and I needed the love theme to be a part of the music that the band is enjoying. So I wrote a music for the band that additionally turns into the massive love theme, and Nia wrote the lyrics.
But in addition, I believe it’s very thrilling once you do a interval piece to know what music was being written on the time. One of the vital thrilling composers for me right now in England was Cornelius Cardew, who was writing music for a mixture {of professional} and newbie musicians. He would do these large-scale performances the place he would have folks sing collectively, so I used to be type of imagining that he was on the get together and was beginning to write a few of these items.
And so I made a choir from the solid and the crew of the movie. We have been all singing collectively and respiratory collectively, so that every one the voices and the breaths come from this choir made up of ladies from the manufacturing workplace and gaffers and extras and a few of the solid. There are such a lot of folks behind the digicam and across the digicam, and it was good to deliver all of them into the music. I recorded it throughout the damaged chandelier on the ground. (Laughs)
Have been the crew members desirous to take part?
Loads of them weren’t used to singing, so that they have been very nervous about it. However I had simply completed a e-book about respiratory and Nia had been learning the Samuel Beckett play that’s mainly simply an inhale and an exhale (the 35-second 1969 play “Breath”). We have been each eager about that, and after I got here up with the concept of recording the solid and crew, respiratory collectively was an incredible place to start out making sounds. The singing got here out of the respiratory.
With a few of the musical cues in “Hedda,” you wrote preparations for the massive band, however then you definitely went again to the theme and stripped components away, till you took the piece all the best way all the way down to, say, percussion.
Precisely. I believe it’s actually attention-grabbing to see how a lot you are able to do with little or no. I’m at all times very interested by attempting to determine the best way to drive an entire sound world out of very small components.
I bear in mind a unprecedented live performance you probably did at Disney Corridor a few years in the past, the place one of many items was carried out by a single musician standing on the entrance of the stage enjoying a bit of triangle.
Precisely, precisely! (Laughs) That actually embodies what I’m so interested by, which is listening to the main points and listening to the textures to know the world of sound you will get from that one factor. I’m at all times inquisitive about that – like with “Chernobyl,” after I made an entire rating out of the sounds of an influence plant. It’s at all times thrilling for me to make these challenges for myself and see how far I can go together with it.
After the success you’ve had over the previous few years, what does it take to make you say sure to a movie task?
I attempt to at all times use these movie tasks as a type of venue to check out one thing that I wouldn’t have tried in any other case. I’ve been writing music for a really very long time and enjoying the cello and my devices for a very long time. These are issues I’m comfy with, however I actually attempt to discover one thing that I’ve but to discover after I tackle a movie. In “Hedda,” the jazz component was one thing I in all probability wouldn’t have completed on my own.
Did “Joker” dramatically change issues for you, particularly in Hollywood?
Completely. I believe each “Joker” and “Chernobyl” have been actually pretty for me, as a result of earlier than these two tasks, I obtained requested much more whether or not I may deal with these sorts of tasks. (Laughs) For no matter motive, I stored listening to that query. And in addition, the best way I wish to work, which is to put in writing music very early on to accompany the taking pictures, folks weren’t as accustomed to that method of working.
However after I did each of these tasks, having them work out the best way they did has given folks extra belief in my typically unorthodox methods of working. Persons are much less afraid after I waltz in and say that I wish to do an entire rating from the sounds of a nuclear energy plant, as a result of they understand I can really pull it off.
You’ve obtained a few scores developing, together with “The Bride,” but additionally a few of your non-soundtrack work.
I do, sure. I’ve a band (Osmium), we simply launched an album in the summertime. I’ve been going again to enjoying live shows extra as a result of my son is a teen, so I really feel I can journey a bit extra. I had my first solo file in 10 years come out in October, and I performed my first cello live performance in 9 years a month in the past. And subsequent yr is the twentieth anniversary of my first file. I’ve a file popping out to have a good time that, and I’ll be doing fairly just a few exhibits subsequent yr.
So I’ve been fairly busy. I used to be laughing about this: I used to essentially love enjoying Tetris after I was youthful, and now I believe I’m enjoying Tetris with my calendar.
