Bryce Dessner

Cincinnati-born and Yale-trained as a classical guitarist, Bryce Dessner is known to one audience as a founding member and guitarist of The National and to another as a composer with a substantial concert catalogue: works for the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the New York Philharmonic, Ensemble intercontemporain, the Kronos Quartet and Sō Percussion. He writes for film and co-founded the MusicNOW festival in Cincinnati. He was born on 23 April 1976 and grew up beside his twin brother Aaron, with whom he also writes for The National, and his Grammy-winning projects include Filament with Eighth Blackbird in 2016 and Sleep Well Beast with The National in 2018; he produced Filament, which includes his Murder Ballades. His concert catalogue includes a concerto for two pianos written for Katia and Marielle Labèque and recorded for Deutsche Grammophon, a violin concerto first played by Pekka Kuusisto, a trombone concerto for Jörgen van Rijen, Voy a Dormir for the mezzo-soprano Kelley O'Connor and the ballet No Tomorrow made with Ragnar Kjartansson and Margrét Bjarnadóttir. His score for The Two Popes brought him the Discovery of the Year prize at the World Soundtrack Awards in 2020. In 2026 he received a Golden Globe nomination for the song Train Dreams.