Hildur Guðnadóttir Lands Emmy For “Chernobyl” Score

Hildur Guðnadóttir, who composed the haunting score for the HBO hit miniseries Chernobyl, has landed the Emmy that she was nominated for: outstanding music composition for a limited series, movie or special (original dramatic score), specifically for the score in episode two of the series, “Please Remain Calm”.

Hildur’s genius for film and television scores is well documented, having worked with The Knife, Ben Frost and Ryuichi Sakamoto, and on the film scores for ‘The Revenant’ and ‘Arrival’, as well as on the score for Chernobyl.

Part of the eerie beauty of Chernobyl’s score can be attributed to the methodology, which employed actual sounds from a nuclear power plant.

“You arrive and you have to put on these Soviet uniforms and hats and so on,” she told the Grapevine about the process in a recent interview. “Being able to spend a few days in the lives of the people who work in these environments is phenomenal. They spend their days taking it all apart, and have been doing for 15 years or so. It was really inspirational to go there.”