Karl Sölve StevenKarl Sölve StevenKarl Sölve Steven
Karl Sölve Steven is an award-winning New Zealand/Swedish composer of music to picture. His score for Come To Daddy (starring Elijah Wood, dir. Ant Timpson) was celebrated by reviewers and won the APRA Screen Music Award for Best Music in a Feature Film. In 2023 Karl has scored The Subtle Art Of Not Giving A #@%! (prod. GFC/Universal Content Group, dir. Nathan Price), an innovative documentary based on Mark Manson’s bestselling book exploring society’s obsession with the pursuit of happiness.
Karl comes from a background in studio engineering, where as a teenager he trained in both digital and tape production, and he has been heavily involved writing and producing a number of platinum selling musical projects over the years. His academic background includes a PhD in Ancient Philosophy from Trinity College Cambridge.
Karl’s soundtrack to the Black Hands series (prod. Warner Bros, series producer Robin Scholes) won Best Original Score in a Series at the APRA Screen Music Awards 2021, and selections from it have been performed in concert by the Kulios String Trio. His long-form work has aired on BBC (Tatau), Netflix (The Casketeers), and Seven Network (800 Words).
Together with Larsen Winiata Tito-Taylor and Ben Tawhiti he has worked on Nova Paul’s experimental short films that have screened at the Pompidou Center and Sundance Film Festival. Karl is the son of a filmmaker and a writer, and is well known in Aotearoa New Zealand as a thoughtful collaborator and passionate story-teller.
selected credits:
THE SUBTLE ART OF NOT GIVING A #@%! (Film) d. Nathan Price (2023)
THE JUSTICE OF BUNNY KING (Film) d. Gaysorn Thavat (2021)