Oscar-winner Hildur, the symbol for women voices

Volcano from Iceland

IBy Cezary Owerkowicz

n the deck of cards Joker takes everything; unexpected, unpredictable, just crazy. This is the power of Joker. Is it like a volcano? Iceland is the land of ice; it means cold land but is known also for hot geysers and volcanoes... totally unpredictable. Have you heard of the Eyjafjallajokull’s (sorry, I can’t pronounce it!) a volcano in Iceland which erupted ten years ago, in 2010 on March 20 to be precise and spewed hot ash until June 23)?

It affected the economic, politic and cultural activities in Europe and across the world. It prevented several leaders from around the world such as Barack Obama, Angela Merkel, Nicolas Sarkozy among others from attending the state funeral for the lech President Lech Kaczynski in Poland. Hundreds of events were cancelled and hundreds of thousands of travelers were unable to reach their destination.

It is impossible to forget the amazing good performance of the Iceland soccer team in the FIFA World Cup Finals when it became the first team to ever compete in the FIFA World Cup Final from the least populated country. Moreover, the team fielded semi-professionals, but showed a strong will to fight and win. As old Vikings were? They undermined few ‘common theories’ regarding sportsmen, sometimes fantastic but sometimes so spoiled, and last but not the least – brilliant career of unexceptional singer and songwriter, Bjork. I wrote about her a few times.

Her family name is: Gudnadóttir, also not easy to pronounce. However I have to try my best to study Icelandic names. Two weeks ago I predicted the Oscar Award for The Original Score to ‘Joker’ a movie made by Hildur Ingveldardóttir Gudnadóttir. Even my best will and efforts, I hope that she will be known as – Hildur. However she won: for herself, for ‘Joker’, and for female composers! Just she was The First in the History.

Owerkowicz

Remembrance

She is 37, and was born on Sept 4, 1982 in Reykjavik, capital of Iceland. Her father was a clarinetist, conductor, composer and teacher, her mother an Opera singer. Her two brothers are members of music ensembles. “My first musical remembrance was as daddy practiced ‘Flight of the Bumblebee’ by Nicolas Rimsky Korsakov, and it amused me, so I tell him to play it forever,” she says. “As a small girl I often fell asleep on the floor of the practice room of the Music Academy.”

Her mother, when she was pregnant with her, said that she will give birth to a cellist. And true to her words the daughter started to play cello when she was five. (Can you imagine a tiny girl playing a big instrument as big as cello? Cute…) When she was ten she made her first public appearance in a concert (alongside her mother, of course). ‘I liked to play cello, but always I had a major problem with submission’, she remembers. ‘Music is a form of communication and expression; nothing should be imposed.’

Maybe because of it, after graduation at the Reykjavik Music Academy, she went to Berlin, to study composition. Except that she studied also at the Iceland Academy of Fine Arts as well as at Berlin Fine Arts University.

She never intended to compose film music but for a long time was interested in synchronizing music with story. d began to cooperate with her father’s friend, Iceland composer, Johann Johannsson, He was twice nominated for The Best Score Oscar Awards. She helped him with music to Canadian movie director Denis Villeneuve’s films.

She has developed her own style of work. When she received a proposal to compose music to ‘Chernobyl’, miniseries of the HBO drama in 2019 she submitted her own author’s idea. She went on filming near the already closed

Igalina Nuclear Power Plant, the twin sister of original Chernobyl Plant, situated in Lithuania and she was recording certain sounds. On its base she composed music to that series. She didn’t want to artificially emphasize the action created drama. She cared about honesty and respect for the disaster victims.

Symbol

Simultaneously with ‘Chernobyl’ she began her work on ‘Joker’. Hildur reminds of the story of the people affected by man-made disease, which broke her heart. Music was created before filming because of this Joaquin Phoenix played many scenes with headphones like to Hildur’s music – music dictated the tempo and rhythm of play, choreography and emotional change.

Hildur became the third ever woman awarded The Best Score of ninety-one in the history of Academy Awards – earlier awardees were Rachel Portman in 1996 for ‘Emma’ and Anne Dudley in 1997 for ‘The Full Monty’. In this case she became a symbol of female participation in Hollywood and Academy Awards, especially nowadays, when we remain focused on equal rights for both genders.

The composer approves her symbolic status as ambassador of female professionals and their position. She raised the matter of unacceptable statistics. The New York Times info shows from 250 movies of American box-office in 2018, ninety for percent were composed by a study done by Center for the Study of Women in TV and Film.

Hildur supports the associations involved in deep change of such situation. One of them is Alliance for Women Film Composers, established in 2014 by Laura Karpman (‘Odyssey’).

Its members act on education, organization of panels and support of women in film industry.’ A bit more women compose music to document the ‘independent’ cinema.

Phenomenon

However it is still a very ‘masculinized’ industry. There are few reasons for it. First – historical: from the beginning of cinema production music was composed by males and they had also male successors; secondly – in the case of huge, big-budget production there is lack of producers’ imagination. To such cinema there were ‘Top Five’ already famous men, and for women there was a job in romantic comedies only. It is a negative phenomenon.’

Hildur is thirty-seven already, and since twenty years does film music. She has recorded five solo albums, composed music to fourteen movies and eight TV productions. She is the first lady who won the Golden Globe for ‘solo’, alone and not shared with somebody.

In addition to this she was awarded Emmy, Grammy and BAFTA. It is like winning all major tournaments, the Top Grand Slam in tennis. Smiling, energetic she was the focus of attention of all cinema people from both sides of the screen. She beat in Oscar competition such celebrities as John Williams, nominated for Star Wars (Skywalker, Revival), and Alexandre Desplat (Little Women).

After warmly expressing her thanks for family and supporters, Hildur in her address ‘Girls, women, mothers and daughters, who have heard music playing in their minds and hearts, please, let us know about you, we have to hear your voices! Let us wait for women voices.

P.S. Kasia Laska, Polish actress who dubbed Elsa’s song ‘Into the Unknown’ from the nominated movie ‘Iceland 2’, performed with Idina Menzel and her seven colleagues female singers during the Oscar Awarding Ceremony. A really hot performance… They were like Iceland geysers but Hildur reminds me rather of the Iceland volcano.

Editor’s Note: Cezary Owerkowicz is the chairman of the Kuwait Chamber of Philharmonia and talented pianist. He regularly organises concerts by well-known musicians for the benefit of music lovers and to widen the knowledge of music in Kuwait. His email address is: cowerkowicz @ yahoo.com and cowerkowicz@ hotmail.com