Faroese music is primarily vocal, accompanied by the fiddle and European dances like the minuet and polka. During the twentieth century choirs have played an important role in the musical history of the Faroes, and some of the best known current choirs are Tarira, Havnarkórið, Tórshavnar Manskór, Ljómur, Fuglafjarðar Gentukór, and the choirs situated in Copenhagen: Húsakórið and Mpiri.
MC-Hár is a rap-band from the Faroe Islands. They were the first Faroese rap-band and the first band to sing rap in Faroese. Since the first time MC-Hár went on stage in February 1991, the band has made its mark on the Faroese rock scene. From being an underground act with a small but faithful following, the band in the late nineties emerged as one of the biggest acts in the Faroe Islands.
Kristian Blak, originally from Fredericia, Denmark, lives in the Faroe Islands where he is a composer, musician, and record executive. He is the founder of the Nordic musical ensemble Yggdrasil. He has worked with sounds in the Faroese nature in several compositions. These include concerts in caves and other natural "concert halls" in the Faroe Islands. He has composed solo instrumental works, chamber music, choral works and symphonic music, for example the ballad Harra Pætur og Elinborg. In 2010 Queen Margrethe of Denmark visited the Faroe Islands, and one of the events she visited was a grotto concert in Klæmintsgjógv by Kristian Blak and other musicians. The cave is 50 meter high and the sea in the cave is around 400 meter deep. There are some places inside the cave where the musicians can stand with their instruments and give a concert to the audience in the boats.
Eivør Pálsdóttir, known mononymously as Eivør, is a Faroese singer-songwriter and actress. Born and raised in Syðrugøta, she had her first televised performance at the age of 13. Over the course of her decades-long career, her musical output has spanned a wide range of genres such as folk, art pop, jazz, folk rock, classical and electronica.
Týr is a Faroese folk metal band. They have been characterised as one of "the islands' two most successful metal bands". Their subject matter revolves almost entirely around Viking lore, mythology, and history, taking their name from Týr, the god of war in Norse religion.
Sunleif Rasmussen is the foremost Faroese composer of classical music.
The Nordic Council Music Prize is awarded annually by NOMUS, the Nordic Music Committee. Every two years it is awarded for a work by a living composer. In the intervening years it is awarded to a performing musician or ensemble.
The G! Festival is a Faroese musical festival, held annually at the seaside village Gøta on Eysturoy in mid or late July, but always before the Ólavsøka. It is one of the two largest music festivals on the Faroe Islands, the other being Summarfestivalurin. It was founded by Sólarn Solmunde and musician Jón Tyril, both locals. Jón is also the present chairman of the festival. The G! Festival is an innovative cultural event which has been well received. The festival brings together leading international musicians as well as local musicians. The founding goal was to change the musical landscape of the Faroes. Working to achieve this goal has earned the festival the position as the most important and influential musical event on the islands.
Ólavur Jakobsen, classical guitarist. Studied at the Royal Danish Academy of Music in Copenhagen with Ingolf Olsen and received his diploma exam in 1995. Further studies in Paris with French guitarist Roland Dyens. Has participated in masterclasses with e.g. Sir Julian Bream and David Russell.
Rúni Brattaberg is a bass opera singer from the Faroe Islands, who works in operas around the world. He has been building his repertoire with Wagner and other leading bass roles such as Osmin/The Abduction from the Seraglio, Timur/Turandot, Sparafucile/Rigoletto, Sarastro/The Magic Flute, Kaspar/Der Freischütz, the Doctor/Wozzeck, Rocco/Fidelio, and Basilio/The Barber of Seville in the ensembles of the Mainz, Ulm, Detmold, Bern, and Mannheim opera companies. In January 2017 he received the Faroese Cultural Prize.
TUTL Records is a record label of the Faroe Islands that was founded in 1977 by Kristian Blak. The label is credited with giving many Faroese musicians their first break and "has played a major role in giving musicians a chance to record and publish."
The vocal ensemble Mpiri is a Faroese choral ensemble based in Copenhagen. The members are mostly Faroese studying or working in Copenhagen. The conductor is Gorm Larsen.
Heiðrikur á Heygumpronounced [ˈhaɪ:ɹɪkʊɹ ˈɔa ˈheɪ:jʊm], known by the stylised mononym HEIDRIK, is a Faroese artist who is currently based in Denmark as of 2020. His career has spanned multiple genres and mediums throughout his decades-long career.
Skálmöld is a Viking / folk metal band from Reykjavík, Iceland, formed in August 2009. The band's name is literally translated as Age of Swords and also means "lawlessness", referring to the Age of the Sturlungs of Icelandic history, when a civil war broke out between the country's family clans.
Hanus G. Johansen, also known as Hanus G., is a Faroese singer and composer. He was born in Klaksvík and is well known in his country as a concert and festivalperformer. Many of his songs have become evergreens and are popular even among the young people. He has composed melodies for some of Poul F. Joensen's poems, first time was in 1988, when he released his album Gaman og álvara; Poul F. (1898-1970) wrote poems about the Faroese society, about love and other themes as well. In November 2012, he released a new album with poems by Poul F. Joensen, Á fold eru 1000 gudar, he composed all the melodies. In 2006, Hanus G. released an album with poems by the Norwegian poet Jakob Sande (1906-1967), who is a well known poet in Norway. Hanus G. has performed together with the Faroese ensemble Aldubáran and with the Faroese band Frændur, but often he performs by himself with his guitar or with various musicians. Hanus G.'s music is mostly folk music, but because of its popularity it can also be defined as a kind of pop music.
Evst (Topmost) is the first full-length album by the Faroese doom metal band Hamferð. It was released on October 11, 2013, in the Faroe Islands via Tutl.
Tróndur Bogason is a Faroese composer and musician. He composes classical works, but he also arranges music for pop, rock and folk artists. He is married to the Faroese singer Eivør Pálsdóttir with whom he also works; they arranged her album Room together. Bogason was educated at the Royal Danish Academy of Music. He has been nominated three times for the Nordic Council Music Prize and is one of the few who have received a three-year grant from Mentanargrunnur Landsins.
Marianne Clausen was a Danish musicologist and choir conductor. She was the daughter of composer, choir conductor and musicologist Karl Clausen (1904–1972). Her main achievement, begun in collaboration with her father in the early 1970s, intensified during the 1990s, and concluded just weeks before her death, was the preservation of traditional Faroese folk singing, which she presented in a number of large volumes with music notation transcriptions of sound recordings. Based on more than 6,000 such recordings, collected by many different scholars, including herself, throughout the entire 20th century, she published around 3,350 music notation examples of various genres of traditional Faroese singing, together with hitherto unpublished song texts, as well as historical and musicological analyses.
Faroese Music Awards is a Faroese music prize award ceremony, which was established in 2014, after the former Faroese music prize Planet Awards was abolished when the producers Portal.fo were sold to new owners. Faroese Music Awards is a cooperation between the Faroese national broadcasting company Kringvarp Føroya, the newspaper Sosialurin, the internet portal In.fo and the Nordic House.
