Timo Hietala - Harpa nominated 2019 for his score for Heikki Kujanpää's Laugh or Die
Timo Hietala’s score to the feature film Suomen hauskin mies ((Laugh or Die) is an example of masterful craftmanship, it is timeless and elegant music that provides the mood for an excellent film. Music is only there when needed but then it truly speaks. The usual traps of sentimentality and too much emotial underlining are carefully avoided. Instrument colors are there to support the story at all times, like the bassoon enforcing the role of a rare double reed instrument on screen. Timo’s score is much like the movie, based on a great script and solid actor performance. Music is written with authority and performed beautifully. This movie and its score prove that quality and good storytelling never get old.
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TIMO HIETALA (born 1960) is a professional and critically acclaimed composer, arranger and musician from Helsinki Finland.
His wide career contains a vast amount of productions in all medias and orchestras. He is mostly known for his works with over 60 films; feature, documentary and TV. Hietala has been nominated six times for JUSSI award, winning twice. In 2016 he won the Grand Score Award in Berlin and has also received nominations for Deutsche Film Preis 2011 and Nordic Film Composers Award 2011. Films with his music have won prizes like IDFA main prize 2015 and British Documentary Award ”Grierson Award” for best international documentary 2013 etc. Alongside Hietala's film scores he has worked successfully with drama music in theaters and radio. Especially his music and soundworks in the Finnish National Theatre has been a great success among audiences and critics. His opera Ihmepoika A / Wonder boy A won the YAM Award for Best Opera in 2017. Hietala is also known for his compositions and arrangements for symphony orchestras and has commissioned scores by Ensemble Intercontemporain Paris, Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra and UMO-Jazz Orchestra, BBC London Proms, to name a few. Hietala has worked with the best Finnish conductors, classical and jazz instrumentalists and opera singers during his career and has his own group HumppAvanti inside the Avanti Chamber Orchestra originally founded by Esa-Pekka Salonen, Magnus Lindberg and Jukka-Pekka Saraste. In his works Hietala creatively combines different music genres; concert-, jazz-,improvisational-, ethnic-, rock- and electronic music, and is therefore held as the ”musical freethinker & maker” in the Finnish music scene. |
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