Jóhann Jóhannsson - Overview | Deutsche Grammophon

Icelandic composer Jóhann Jóhannsson was a hugely influential figure in the contemporary music scene. Disregarding any notion of barriers between different genres of music, he created his own compositional language, a fusion of classical, minimalist, ambient and electronic elements, with a frequent use of synths and drones. When he died in February 2018, at the age of just 48, he was at the height of his creative powers. His legacy lives on in his wide-ranging recorded catalogue, whose contents span everything from evocative works for small ensemble to strikingly original and multi-award-winning film scores.

Born in Reykjavík in September 1969, Jóhannsson learned piano and trombone in his youth, but was essentially a self-taught musician. He began playing in bands as a teenager, notably the indie outfit Daisy Hill Puppy Farm and the alt-rock HAM, gradually switching his focus to composition. His debut solo album, Englabörn (“Angels”, 2002), revealed an early ability to translate emotions into atmospheric soundscapes and dramatic musical portraits, using a combination of acoustic and electronic instruments.

He developed his experimental idiom in studio albums such as Virðulegu Forsetar (“Honourable Presidents”, 2004), IBM 1401, A User’s Manual (2006) and Fordlandia (2008), while also starting to write music for theatre, television and film. In 2010–11, for example, he gained wider renown with the soundtrack he wrote for The Miners’ Hymns, American director Bill Morrison’s wordless documentary depicting the ill-fated mining community of County Durham in the north-east of England.

Having settled in Berlin, Jóhannsson began a successful working relationship with Denis Villeneuve with the score for 2013’s Prisoners. He followed this with much-lauded soundtracks for Sicario (2015) and Arrival (2016). The former won him his second Oscar nomination – he had earned his first with the music he wrote for James Marsh’s The Theory of Everything (2014), a soundtrack which was also Grammy-nominated and won the Golden Globe for Best Original Score.

In 2016 Jóhannsson signed with DG, who issued both his final solo album, Orphée (that same year) and his final soundtrack album, The Mercy (a second collaboration with Marsh), released just a week before the composer’s death. Working closely with Jóhannsson’s family, friends and colleagues, DG released several posthumous albums, including Englabörn & Variations (2018); 12 Conversations with Thilo Heinzmann (2019); and the soundtrack co-composed with Yair Elazar Glotman for Last and First Men (2020), a sci-fi film Jóhannsson also co-wrote and directed. These have since been followed by, among others, the “contemporary oratorio” Drone Mass (2022); the large-scale orchestral work A Prayer to the Dynamo (2023).