Live @ Benaroya Hall: Jóhann Jóhannsson featuring American Contemporary Music Ensemble

Jóhann Jóhannsson is a Berlin-based composer originally from Iceland. His varied and eclectic output includes commissioned works for Bang on A Can, Theatre of Voices, and the Icelandic Symphony Orchestra. His debut album Englabörn appeared in 2002 and he has since released five solo albums on the labels Touch and 4AD. He has also composed music for the theatre, dance and film, including the film score for the Stephen Hawking biopic The Theory of Everything (2014), for which he won an Academy Award.

After a period spent mostly concentrating on film scores, this year will see the release of several new music projects, some of which have been a long time in the making. Jóhannsson is working on his first studio album in four years since his last release, Miner’s Hymns, in 2011.

“People seem to need labels, but they can be needlessly reductive,” says Jóhannsson. Ever since he was 18, when he started performing in rock bands in Reykjavik, he’s been looking for ways to break out of rigid categories. The music he's written has always explored the boundary between natural acoustic sounds and electronics, with the goal of exploring and unifying these opposites.

About American Contemporary Music Ensemble

http://www.acmemusic.org/