Chernobyl Soundtrack On Deutsche Grammophon Wins Emmy
The soundtrack to HBO’s Chernobyl, the 5-part TV mini-series. by composer, cellist and singer Hildur Guðnadóttir has won an EMMY for Outstanding Music Composition for a Limited Series, Movie or Special, announced at the Microsoft Theatre in Los Angeles.
The series become the highest rated show on IMDb. Deutsche Grammophon has released the soundtrack to the mini-series, available now.
Commenting on her success, Guðnadóttir said, “It’s been wonderful to follow the reactions to HBO’s Chernobyl miniseries over this summer. I recorded the building blocks for the soundtrack with field-recordist Chris Watson and score-producer Sam Slater at the Ignalina Power Plant in Lithuania, a decommissioned nuclear reactor in which the show was filmed. The vastness of the site directly influenced the score: ultimately no classical instruments were used, and instead the recordings were turned into music, where the only traditional instrumental element was my voice, which was subsequently processed using Impulse Responses recorded on the site. The show itself portrays the disaster with respect and realism, and I was adamant the score reflects this. I wanted to show the viewer how it would feel to be there, and to tell this story of fear, loss and, ultimately, human error.”
The Icelandic composer has also composed a number of scores for films including Joker, Sicario: Day of the Soldado (2018), Strong Island (2017) and Mary Magdalene (2018). Among others, Hildur has performed live and recorded music with Múm, Ryuichi Sakamoto, The Knife, Fever Ray and Jóhann Jóhannsson. Hildur has released four critically acclaimed solo albums Mount A (2006), Without Sinking (2009), Leyfðu Ljósinu (2012) and Saman (2014).
