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Gabríel Ólafs (1998) is an Icelandic pianist, producer and composer. Starting to play piano at age five, he received classical and jazz training in his teens and wrote his first piece “Absent Minded” when he was 14. His debut album of the same name arrived in 2019, followed by “Piano Works”. More recent recordings were inspired by Icelandic poetry and ancient Viking melodies. In 2022, Ólafs co-founded the Reykjavik Orkestra, which produces compositional works for film, TV, and streaming services.
A small island in the Northern Atlantic ocean massively shaped neoclassical music: Icelandic composers like Jóhann Jóhannsson or Ólafur Arnalds created a movement by infusing their compositions with influences from cinematic post-rock, crescendo-core and widescreen electronic music. We picked 5 of the most influential records from Iceland.
