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Viktor Orri Árnason

Icelandic composer, conductor, arranger, performer, improviser, and producer Viktor Orri Árnason blends contemporary classical composition with studio wizardry to create his own unique sound world. Árnason studied violin and viola at the Icelandic University of the Arts and composition and conducting at the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler in Berlin. He started out in music playing bass in Búdrýgindi ("Commodity"), a band he formed with his elementary school friends in 1998 and which won an Icelandic Music Award in 2002, making them the youngest band ever to do so. In 2007, he joined the band Hjaltalín as violinist and songwriter; the following year he co-founded the Skark string ensemble. His first solo venture was the 2019 EP Vast, a collaboration with double bassist Yair Elazar Glotman completely improvised in one evening and released on Bedroom Community. His 2021 debut solo album proper, Eilífur ("Eternal"), saw his first appearance on a core classical label, Pentatone. A reserved, intense, slowly swelling suite of movements for orchestra, choir, and soloists (including Árnason himself on piano, viola, violin, and vocals), it was praised by critics for its emotional and thematic heft. The follow-up, 2023's Myrkvi ("Eclipse"), was a dark electro-acoustic journey, heavy on the electronics, which Árnason based on a dance piece he had composed almost a decade before. That year he signed to Deutsche Grammophon, and his first album for the yellow label was released that November. Poems, a collaboration with soprano Álfheiður Erla Guðmundsdóttir, was a hushed, gorgeous album of orchestral songs setting verses by Icelandic bards and featuring Árnason at the piano. A companion EP of additional pieces, Piano Poems, this time in English and featuring only the duo without orchestra, was released digitally in 2024. Árnason's musical versatility led him to collaborate with a widely varied range of artists including Hauschka, Of Monsters and Men, Robot Koch, and Björk. He conducted the Reykjavík Orchestra on Gabríel Ólafs' album of Orchestral Works, and also contributed to several soundtrack albums by fellow Icelanders: Ólafur Arnalds' Broadchurch, Jóhann Jóhannsson & Hildur Guðnadóttir's Mary Magdalene, and Guðnadóttir's Joker.
© TiVo Staff /TiVo
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Discography

21 album(s) • Sorted by Bestseller

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