Gyda Valtysdottir has been active as a musician since her early teens when she co-founded the experimental pop-group múm in the late 1990’s. Leaving the band after the release of Finally We Are No One to focus on her further musical studies in Reykjavik, St. Petersburg and Basel, she graduated with a double masters degree from the Hochschule für Musik in Basel where her main teachers were cellist and composer Thomas Demenga and violist, composer and improviser Walter Fähndrich.
Her long list of collaborators include Josephine Foster, Kronos Quartet, Colin Stetson, Skúli Sverrisson, Ólöf Arnalds, Jónsi, Úlfur Hansson, Ben Frost, Dustin O´Halloran, Winged Victory for the Sullen, Damien Rice, Aaron & Bryce Dessner, visual-artist Ragnar Kjartansson and cult-film creator Guy Maddin, just to name few.
Gyda has created music for films, installations and dance, among many other creative ventures, possessing a rare range of musical experiences which creates a unique alchemical compound. Her first solo album, Epicycle, was released worldwide in 2017 to great acclaim, for example winning Album of the Year at the prestigious Iceland Music Awards. The album is a collection of recloaked gems of classical repertoire through the last 2000 years. Gyda’s sophomore album Evolution will be released September 28, 2018 on figureight records.
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