Scan Magazine | Culture Profile | Hildur Guðnadóttir
Hildur Guðnadóttir: Breaking the glass ceiling Hildur Guðnadóttir is just about to take the stage at London’s iconic Organ Reframed – a two-day international festival in the glorious surroundings of Islington’s Gothic Union Chapel. It is a surprisingly intimate venue for a musician currently making headlines in Hollywood but, then again, the Icelandic cellist has never been content to blindly follow the score. By Paula Hammond | Press photos
Although fans will have to wait until October 2019 to see Joaquin Phoenix in Joker, Hildur Guðnadóttir is already busy at work composing the soundtrack for the hottest comic book film of the year. While no stranger to the world 128 | Issue 119 | December 2018
of film, having worked on Sicario: Day of the Soldado and Mary Magdalene, Joker catapults Guðnadóttir firmly into the big league. It also makes her the first woman to score a live-action DC Comics film.
Growing up in a family of musicians – dad was a composer, mum an opera singer – may have ignited the spark, but it was curiosity that, she says, kept her music evolving. “I was trained classically, but I was never really comfortable with the idea that there is a right or a wrong way to do music. Those sorts of ideas stand in the way of musical expression for me. Luckily, I got an outlet for my curiosity and my need to experiment by joining bands. Then, in my late teens, I started to bring my cello into that setting, and everything started to make sense.”