Released April 2014
The critically acclaimed score for Esben Toft Jacobsens 2011 animation film The Great Bear, produced by Copenhagen Bombay.
Performed by The Danish National Symphony Orchestra (DRSO), conducted by Nic Raine.
The score was nominated for the 2012 Danish Robert Academy Award, and the 2012 “Harpa” Nordic Composers Award.
Available on iTunes and Spotify
Nicklas Schmidt’s score for Esben Toft Jacobsen’s animated featurefilm, ‘The Great Bear’ (‘Den kæmpestore bjørn’) is in every sense a greatly satisfying work. Nicklas has written an orchestral score that resists the temptation to pull out every stop throughout the film, but elegantly and quietly underscores the beautiful and very Nordic childrens’ animation movie about two kids and their slightly surreal adventure in a Swedish forest. Here and there, Nicklas flashes the muscles of the Danish National Symphony Orchestra (conducted by Nic Raine), but only when the story calls for it – showing Nicklas’ excellent skill to dosage all the different flavours and coulours of a full symphony orchestra.If there’s a meaning to the word ‘Nordic Music’, it lies in the transparent tradition of composers like Grieg, Sibelius or Carl Nielsen, and Nicklas plays elegantly on this tradition, here and there referring to the slightly chilling world of Bernhard Hermann. (motivation from the Danish “Harpa” jury)
For years people have talked about, and tried to define, the so-called ‘nordic tone’. This score is a good example of what it could be, and there’s no doubt that Nicklas Schmidt is major star on the rise!! (review by Jesper Hansen)