Jon Ekstrand SWEDEN

HARPA nominated 2021 for his score for Jesper Ganslandt’s (SE) ’438 dagar’

The film 438 days is based on a true story.
Jon Ekstrand has written a brilliant score that efficiently underlines and complements a very strong human drama. The music supports the documentary character of the story, it never turns into overdramatized, hard-core action. Using a mixture of acoustic and electronic sounds in a seamless and creative way, Ekstrand fully illustrates the characters´ emotions and the different settings and places of the film.
 
Swedish jury:
Ulla-Carin Nyquist | composer and author
Martin Jonsson Tibblin | composer, president FST
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Jon Ekstrand is a Stockholm based Swedish film composer and artist. Ekstrand began his career under the mentorship of acclaimed sound designer Owe Svensson, where he sharpened his skills at understanding the power of sound and its dramaturgic importance in helping a story realize its potential. In 1998, whilst attending Stockholm Film School, Ekstrand met Director Daniel Espinosa, in which the two formed a tight creative relationship which continues to this day.

Ekstrand and Espinosa have collaborated on seven feature films, including the hit “Easy Money” Trilogy as well as Hollywood Studio Films, “Child 44”, “Life” and is current scoring the Marvel/Sony film “Morbius”. Jon has had a rich career within film, having worked the entire spectrum of the sound team, from boom operator, sound recordist, to sound designer and today as accoladed composer. Ekstrand is a self confessed synthesizer addict, and generally starts building his scores around electro acoustic elements. His scores range in genre from more minimal arthouse ambient to epic thriller drama´s, where he has recorded with full orchestra´s at both Air Studio in London to Sony Studio´s in Los Angeles. To date Ekstrand has scored over 30 films and TV series, has been nominated for Three Swedish Guldbagge Awards, and just four weeks ago was honored with The Danish Film Academy Robert Award, for his 2019 score to the film Queen of Hearts.

Ekstrand has a strong moral imagination, daring to stand up and ask the questions “where are we going?”, and “how do we build a future where creators and artists can continue to perform their important roles in society ”. Jon is actively engaged in helping lift forwards more female composers into leading roles as well as mentors several upcoming composers.