Iceland‘s handful of global music superstars are the exception rather than the norm. When asked to picture a successful Icelandic musician, people might think of Björk carefully conceptualising her next project, or Laufey performing on the world’s most popular talk shows — when she’s not too busy selling out concert halls. But there’s a quieter corner of the Icelandic music scene that’s just as successful, if not as visible.
The popularity of Icelandic composers has risen sharply in recent years, often via film and cinema. Since 2010, more than 50 major studio titles have been shot in Iceland, often soundtracked by the sound of Icelandic composers in cinema halls around the globe. One trailblazer in this field was the late, great Jóhann Jóhannsson , whose CV includes the music for movies like Prisoners, Arrival, and the Oscar-winning The Theory of Everything.
When he died in 2018, the torch seemed to pass to his friend and collaborator Hildur Guðnadóttir . Another paragon of Icelandic film composition, Hildur is just a Tony short of an EGOT, having received an Emmy and a Grammy for work on TV series Chernobyl, and adding an Oscar to her mantlepiece in 2020 for Joker. The INNI circle A key player in connecting Icelandic music with the film industry — and its global audience — is Reykjavík-based music company INNI.
Founded in 2019 by Colm O’Herlihy (pictured above, right) and Atli Örvarsson (pictured below, left), a successful Hollywood composer i.