Bjarnason is nominated at the Nordic Council Music prize for his opera Brothers, based on Susanne Bier’s feature film. “Daníel’s musical voice embraces the medium superbly as he plays with the relationship between the individual voices, orchestra and choir, generating a convincing world through his personal musical language,” said the Adjudication Committee.   

Bjarnason won an Icelandic Edda-Best Music (shared with Ben Frost) for the score of Baltasar Kormákur’s film The Deep in 2013; he was Edda nominated for the music of Under the Tree by Hafsteinn Gunnar Sigurðsson for which he won the Harpa Nordic Film Composers Award 2018. The other Icelandic composer nominated for the Nordic Council Music prize is Hugi Guðmundsson, selected for his opera Hamlet in Absentia, which won the 2017 Icelandic Music Award.

For the full list of 13 music nominees from Denmark, Finland, the Faroe Islands, Greenland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden and Åland, check www.norden.org

Besides the Nordic Council Music Prize, four other prizes will be awarded at Oslo Opera House on October 30: the Nordic Council Film Prize (administered by Nordisk Film & TV Fond), the Nordic Council Literature Prize, the Nordic Council Children & Young People’s Literature Prize and the Nordic Council Environment Prize.