Gyða Valtýsdóttir Awarded Nordic Council Music Prize

Composer Gyða Valtýsdóttir has officially won the Nordic Council Music Prize this year. Conductor and former winner of the prize Susanna Mälkki presented the award at Stockholm Concert Hall live on Tuesday evening. Gyða thanked her twin sister and other family members in her acceptance speech.

Gyða first entered the spotlight in the late 90s with the band múm. Since then, she has built a brilliantly diverse and colourful solo career as a composer and a performer. She released the album ‘Evolution’ last year, which merged experimental and classical music into something truly special.

She is very open about her eclectic style. “I think we all have multiple personalities and that’s a good thing. And instead of trying to put it all together and say, ‘This is who I am’ because that’s the loudest voice and the other ones are quieter, you can allow yourself to have different sides and nurture all of them, even if they’re very contradictory,” she told reporters.

The Nordic Council Music Prize is awarded every other year. It is bestowed upon a work by a living composer on one year, and an ensemble or artist the next. The prize is open to artists from Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, Finland, Greenland, the Faroe Islands, and the Åland Islands.