Icelandic cellist and composer Hildur Guðnadóttir has been named Television Composer of the Year at the annual World Soundtrack Awards. The award ceremony was held in Ghent, Belgium yesterday. Guðnadóttir received the award for the score of HBO’s Chernobyl (she won an Emmy in September for the same score).
In her acceptance speech, Guðnadóttir praised her colleagues: “The whole cast and crew were so phenomenal and I’d like to thank them for trusting me with this incredible journey.”
She dedicated the award to her mother – singer and radio personality Ingveldur G. Ólafsdóttir – who taught her daughter that the beauty and profundity of music easily transcend worldly possessions; Guðnadóttir later added that her mother had put those words into action by selling her car to finance Guðnadóttir’s first cello: “Mamma, þetta er fyrir þig,” Guðnadóttir declared, in Icelandic, at the conclusion of her speech (“Mom, this one’s for you”).
The World Soundtrack Awards have been held annually since 2001. This is the third consecutive year that an Icelandic composer wins an award at the ceremony. The late Jóhann Jóhannsson won in the category of Film Composer of the Year in 2017 and 2018. He and Guðnadóttir collaborated on the music for the film Mandy, Mary Magdalene.
