ANNETTE GENTZ MUSIC & FILM ARTS
JACOB MÜHLRAD
Biography
Jacob Mühlrad, celebrated Swedish art music composer, born 1991, has rapidly emerged as one of the most recognizable composers in Europe, and has had his work performed at the biggest venues in Sweden, as well as Carnegie Hall in New York, and Bamberg Hall in Germany. His latest release “Time” (out via Deutsche Grammophone) received a 5-five-star BBC Music Magazine review and he was described as “one the world’s best, most imaginative, orchestral composers”. Mühlrad has collaborated with soloists, such as Martin Fröst and Johannes Rostamo, and has also experimented with pop music collaborations, together with artists like the Swedish House Mafia, and rap artist, Silvana Imam.
Mühlrad has written extensively for chamber ensembles and orchestras. His choral music is a very distinctive and important element of his work, and through it he has been able to achieve a unique expression of the mystical aspect of Jewish tradition. Anim Zemirot (2013) represented a breakthrough for Mühlrad and is now a standard in the repertoire of many outstanding European choirs. His piece, Angelus Novus (2018), is being presented around the world by Martin Fröst. Kaddish (2017) is a work that holds a deeply personal connection to the composer. Jacob is a third-generation survivor and in his music, he tells the story of his grandfather’s survival of The Holocaust. In 2021, this selection of Mühlrad’s award-winning choir music, performed by the Swedish Radio Choir and conducted by Ragnar Bohlin and Fredrik Malmberg, was released on the prestigious Deutsche Grammophon label (in Sweden 2019, internationally 2021). In 2019, Jacob Mühlrad began a multi-year collaboration with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra. This included the commission of two large orchestral works; REMS, the first one, was conducted by Pablo Heras Casado and presented during two sold-out premieres in September 2021.
Jacob Mühlrad’s scores for theater include “Tröstrapporter (Reports of Consolation)”, commissioned by The Royal Dramatic Theatre, written and directed by the best-selling author Alex Schulman. Over the past years, Mühlrad has worked on numerous high-profile campaigns for brands including Volvo, Einride, WhatsApp and Renewcell, winning several prestigious industry awards along the way.
Jacob Mühlrad scored the feature film “Burn All My Letters”, directed by the multi-award-winning director Björn Runge, starring Bill Skarsgard, Gustav Lindh, and Asta August.