Jóhann Jóhannsson

Idiosyncratic and visionary, Reykjavik-born composer and musician Jóhann Jóhannsson emerged from the school of minimalist electronica that caught fire in Iceland during the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Low key yet persistent and haunting, Johansson's work - much of it done for film and television scores - added a new and striking dimension to neo-classical composition, that seemed inseparable from the cultural mythos of the country that produced it. Born in 1969, Jóhannsson took his debut bow in his early 30s, when his album Englabörn (Angel Children) was recorded at Fríkirkjan and NT&V Studios in August 2001 and released on the Touch label the following October. A 48-minute piece of chamber music authored for string quartet, piano, percussion, glockenspiel and electronic instruments - which Johansson both performed and arranged - it announced its creator as a formidable talent. It also revealed the diversity of his inspirations, demonstrating influence by a variegated spectrum of artists from Moondog to Erik Satie. Successive Jóhannsson albums appeared to unabated acclaim, including the brass ensemble piece Virthulegu Forsetar (2004) and the orchestral recording 12 Tónar (2004). Yet by Jóhannsson's quaternary release, the 2006 IBM, A User's Manual - an album comprised of sounds from an old IBM mainframe computer - it became clear to everyone that the musician was aggressively stretching himself, eager to try undreamt of innovations in the studio. In time, Jóhannsson began to receive his broadest pop culture recognition for his film and television compositions, an interest that he carried from the outset of his career. Unsurprisingly, given the offbeat nature of his work, it almost exclusively accompanied arthouse features in lieu of Hollywood films. Motion pictures fully or partially scored by Jóhannsson include: Paul McGuigan's 2004 romantic mystery "Wicker Park," So Yong Kim's harrowing divorce drama "For Ellen" (2012), Josh C. Waller's crime saga "McCanick" (2013), and - most visibly - James Marsh's 2014 Stephen Hawking biopic "The Theory of Everything." For that project, Jóhannsson received an Oscar nomination for Best Original Score in early 2015.