Composer Jesper Kyd to receive the Nile Rodgers Global Creators Award at 2018 Canadian Music Week

Internationally acclaimed Danish composer Jesper Kyd will be honoured with the 2018 Nile Rodgers Global Creators Award at Canadian Music Week in Toronto, which takes place from 7 – 13 May.

The BAFTA award-winner and Billboard / MTV VMA nominee has created brand-defining original soundtracks for multiple blockbuster franchises including Assassin’s Creed, Borderlands, Hitman, Darksiders and State of Decay.

Renowned for crafting unique cinematic and atmospheric musical scores combining a diverse array of instrumentation and processed sounds, Kyd is being honoured for his nearly twenty-year career in video games scoring.

“I’ve been a Jesper Kyd fanboy for years,” said Rock and Roll Hall of famer and multiple Grammy Award-winning artist, producer, arranger and guitarist Nile Rodgers (CHIC, Daft Punk, David Bowie, Duran Duran).

In 1998, Rodgers launched Sumthing Distribution and Sumthing Else Music Works, a boutique distribution company and record label that’s found considerable success in soundtracks for popular video game franchises such as Resident Evil, Borderlands, Gears of War and Halo. Previous recipients of the Nile Rodgers Global Creators Award include entertainment industry luminaries Paul Shaffer, Spike Lee and Tony Visconti.

An original modern artist and musician for a new generation immersed in digital FX and interactive entertainment, Jesper Kyd first started composing music for visual media in the experimental European demoscene, performing at so-called ‘demo’ video game parties including a broadcast stint on MTV Europe.

At 19 he became part owner of a video game developer which later evolved into IO Interactive, the studio behind the popular Hitman series that chronicles anti-hero Agent 47’s missions to eliminate underworld criminals, and Freedom Fighters, an alternative universe depicting a propaganda-fueled Russian army invasion of New York.

During this early period of Kyd’s career he composed and recorded some of the first live orchestral and choral scores heard in video games, including the symphonic scores for Hitman 2, Freedom Fighters and Hitman 4 featuring the Budapest Symphony Orchestra and Hungarian Radio Choir, while also blending operatic performances and signature electronic sounds into memorable hybrid scores.

“I love exploring new music styles and mixing different genres together,” says Kyd. “Finding a unique approach adds depth, which can truly define the score and the game or film.”

JESPER KYD CREDITS:

Hitman: Codename 47 (2000)

Hitman 2: Silent Assassin (2002)

Freedom Fighters (2003)

Hitman: Contracts (2004)

Hitman: Blood Money (2006)

Assassin’s Creed (2007)

Borderlands (2009)

Assassin’s Creed 2 (2009)

Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood (2010)

Assassin’s Creed Revelations (2011)

Borderlands 2 (2012)

Darksiders 2 (2012)

State of Decay (2013)

Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel (2014)

Borderlands: Claptastic Voyage (2014)

Warhammer: Vermintide (2015)

Chronicles of the Ghostly Tribe 3D (2015)

Robinson: The Journey (2016) Warhammer: Vermintide 2 (2018)

State of Decay 2 (2018)

Tumbad (2018)