Jon Ekstrand creates a hauntingly tense and palpable score to untold story of visionary regent Margrete I.

The OST with original music by Jon Ekstrand is now available via Oona Recordings. ‘Margrete - Queen of the North,’ the highly anticipated large-scale period drama starring Trine Dryholm in the lead as Margrete I, tells the previously untold story of one of the most powerful regents in Scandinavian history. Standing at the absolute center of power, Margrete is a magnificent woman. Ahead of her time, she sacrifices herself completely for her land, gathering the three Nordic countries of Denmark, Norway and Sweden into a peaceful and visionary union. She created something extraordinarily grand with enormous consequences to her personal life. The film is produced by SF studios and directed by internationally acclaimed director Charlotte Sieling (The Killing, The Bridge, Borgen, Homeland). “It was very enlightening to enter the lens of the medieval ages, a time period that is so widely viewed as a dark and brutal period of human existence, and attempt to dive into the inner world of this influential female character. Sieling portrays a woman whose challenges, despite taking place over 900 years ago, draw a very close parallel to the same struggles woman face today.” (Jon Ekstrand) 'Margrete – Queen of North’ is released in Denmark on 16 September, followed by Sweden, Norway and Iceland later this year.

To musically accompany Margrete, one of the strongest rulers Europe has ever seen, director Charlotte Sieling gave composer Jon Ekstrand a lot of creative freedom, allowing him to sculpt a sonic narrative that was authentic to the film´s time period whilst contemporary enough to allow the narrative to find parallels with the present tense:

“Charlotte Sieling is truly a wonderful director and creative leader, as she manages to walk the line between being able to describe what she thinks will work, whilst giving me trust and space as a vital creative part in the process of making this film. This really gave me the space and confidence to experiment freely and feel my way forwards into the narrative in order to create an appropriate sonic universe.”

In order to create this unique sonic universe, Ekstrand took a deep dive and went heavily into the instruments that were present and available during the 1200 & 1300’s and ended up really falling in love with the Key Harp (Nøgleharpe, Nyckelharpa), an instrument rich in Scandinavian folk music history:

“I wanted to try and integrate a medieval instrument into this score, but bring it forwards into a more contemporary context. I landed on Key Harp (Nøgleharpe, Nyckelharpa), totally falling in love with the instrument and taking intensive lessons from the ground up. I ended up playing it myself on much of the score as I did not want it to sound so polished, but more disharmonic and textural.

Apart from the Key Harp, Cello was one of the main solo instruments on the score, accompanied by a string orchestra from the Gothenburgs Philharmonic Orchestra and the Gunnar Erikssons Chamber Choir, which gave the score the extra cinematic breath that the story was telling:

“I really wanted to go away from the traditional medieval score route, with the big brass section and epic battle sounds. So the idea was to create these harmonic textures with the Key Harp to build tension and then allow the cello to be the melodic core of the score. I collaborated with the great cello soloist Linnea Olsson. The score also includes one song, for which I had the opportunity to collaborate with Rebekka Karijord again. She wrote the text for and sang on the piece “Lullaby for Oluf”, that really encapsulates a special moment in the film.”

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