Silfur Dustin O'Halloran

• Dustin O'Halloran (b. 1971):
• 1Opus 5604:20
• 2Opus 28 (Silfur Version)03:44
• 3Opus 44 (Silfur Version)03:01
• 4Opus 18 (Silfur Version)03:31
• 5Opus 17 (Silfur Version)02:12
• Dustin O'Halloran & Bryan Senti (b. 1983):
• 6Opus 55 (Silfur Version)06:36
• Dustin O'Halloran:
• 7Opus 12 (Silfur Version)03:19
• 8Fine (Silfur Version)03:16
• 9Opus 20 (Silfur Version)06:42
• 10Opus 7 (Silfur Version)03:36
• 11Opus 30 (Silfur Version)03:34
• 12Opus 17 (String Quartet Version)03:24
• 13Opus 21 (Silfur Version)03:54
• 14Opus 37 (Silfur Version)04:35
• Dustin O'Halloran & Gyða Valtýsdóttir (b. 1982):
• 15Constellation No. 204:19
• Total Runtime01:00:03

Info for Silfur

Dustin O’Halloran worked on Silfur during the lockdown in Iceland, where he ordinarily spends part of the year. Unable to return to his other home in Los Angeles, he drew inspiration from isolation and Iceland’s unique atmosphere, revisiting works from four solo albums and refining them through the prism of his Icelandic experience. At the first recording session for this album he was given a gift of silfurberg (“silver rock”), a native Icelandic crystal, which inspired its title. “As light enters it,” explains O’Halloran, “it’s reflected into two perspectives. It felt that that’s what I was doing in making this record. And I feel the place you’re in always has a resonance – it somehow comes through the music.”

Dustin O’Halloran worked on Silfur during the lockdown in Iceland, where he ordinarily spends part of the year. Unable to return to his other home in Los Angeles, he drew inspiration from isolation and Iceland’s unique atmosphere, revisiting works from four solo albums and refining them through the prism of his Icelandic experience. At the first recording session for this album he was given a gift of silfurberg (“silver rock”), a native Icelandic crystal, which inspired its title. “As light enters it,” explains O’Halloran, “it’s reflected into two perspectives. It felt that that’s what I was doing in making this record. And I feel the place you’re in always has a resonance – it somehow comes through the music.”

“I’ve lived with these pieces for many years and performed or returned to them from time to time,” continues O’Halloran. “When Christian Badzura from Deutsche Grammophon asked if I would like to record them again, I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to go back into my past. But I thought this was a chance to give them more of what I intended. This was an opportunity to try to finalise them in a way that I could put them to rest, because there were things I wanted to see if I could capture. There was a feeling of travelling back in time to my past while experiencing the music in new ways in the present. It’s very special that we can capture time in this way. And I think that’s almost what music is: it’s capturing time. It’s capturing a moment, which we can experience again later.”

Echoes of everyone from J.S. Bach, Chopin and Debussy to Arvo Pärt and Erik Satie can be heard in O’Halloran’s keyboard compositions. His personal aesthetic, gentle and restrained, magnifies the subtle nuances of emotion with acute awareness. In addition to performing ten solo tracks, O’Halloran is joined on Silfur by a number of friends and collaborators. The composer Bryan Senti is featured on the new arrangement of ‘Opus 55’ performing violin. The Siggi String Quartet joins on ‘Opus 28’ and ‘Opus 37’, and also contributes on a new version of ‘Opus 17’ for strings. Alongside this, composer and cellist Gyða Valtýsdóttir is featured on ‘Constellation No. 2’.

"As O’Halloran revisits his solo works, he occasionally tinkers with their DNA. Although nothing is dramatically different, these new settings seem more intimate and as one might expect, more confident. The tendency of most composers is to veer upward and outward, so it’s a joy to hear an artist still in love with his instrument of choice, eager to highlight its creaks and vicissitudes. Those early albums ~ years before even Vorleben ~ were simply titled Piano Solos and Piano Solos Vol. 2. O’Halloran highlights “the pieces that have stayed with him,” but the same will be true of fans as well; my own delight is the new version of “Opus 37,” my favorite track from the artist, the closing piece of Vol. 2 and the penultimate piece of Silfur, chased only by the brand new “Constellations.” The strings enhance the original, but the melancholic piano melody is still the one that sticks." (Richard Allen)

Dustin O'Halloran, piano
Siggi String Quartet
Gyða Valtýsdóttir, cello ("Constellation No. 2")

Dustin O'Halloran
is a composer based in Berlin and Los Angeles.

He founded indie rock band Devics with singer Sara Lov, who he met while studying art at Santa Monica College.

In 2004, he released his first record as a solo artist, Piano Solos. He has since released three more solo records, the latest of which is Lumiere (2011), which featured contributions by Peter Broderick and Adam Wiltzie (Stars of the Lid), and was mixed by the late Jóhann Jóhannsson.

With A Winged Victory for the Sullen, his project with Adam Wiltzie, Dustin O’Halloran has released two albums, A Winged Victory for the Sullen (2011) and Atomos (2014).

He has gone on to score a number of films and TV shows, including Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette (2006), Drake Doremus’ Like Crazy (2011) and Jill Soloway’s Transparent (2014–). He was awarded a Primetime Emmy Award for his original Transparent theme.

Dustin O’Halloran collaborated with Hauschka (Volker Bertelmann) to score Lion (2017), and they won an AACTA Award for their score and were nominated for an Academy Award, Golden Globe and BAFTA.

The two collaborated again to score The Current War (2017), and soon after Dustin O’Halloran collaborated with Bryan Senti to score the TV show Save Me (2018–). His most recent score was for Marc Turtletaub’s Puzzle, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2018.

Booklet for Silfur