About Agnes Obel
Agnes Caroline Thaarup Obel is a Danish singer, songwriter, and musician based in Berlin.
Her debut album, Philharmonics , was released by PIAS Recordings, and was certified gold in June 2011 by the Belgian Entertainment Association after selling 10,000 units. At the Danish Music Awards in November 2011, Obel won five prizes, including Best Album and Best Debut Artist. Her second album Aventine received positive reviews and charted in the top 40 of the charts in nine countries.
Obel's third album Citizen of Glass received acclaim from music critics and the IMPALA Album of the Year Award 2016. In 2018, she curated and performed a compilation album for Late Night Tales series titled Late Night Tales: Agnes Obel. It features artists such as Nina Simone, Henry Mancini, Ray Davies, Michelle Gurevich, Can, and Yello. Her fourth album, Myopia, was released in February 2020.
Agnes Caroline Thaarup Obel was born in Gentofte, Copenhagen, on 28 October 1980, the elder of two siblings. She and her younger brother, Holger, grew up in an unconventional environment, with a father who had three children from another marriage. He loved to collect strange objects and instruments. Her mother, Katja Obel, a civil servant, used to play Bartók and Chopin on the piano at home. Obel learned to play the piano at a very young age. About her learning, she said: "I had a classical piano teacher who told me that I shouldn't play what I didn't like. So I just played what I liked. I was never forced to play anything else." During her childhood, she found inspiration in Jan Johansson's work. Johansson's songs, European folk tunes done in a jazzy style, have been a strong influence on her musically.
In 1990, she joined a small band as a singer and bass guitar player. The group appeared at a festival and recorded some tunes. In 1994, she had a small part in the short film The Boy Who Walked Backwards / Drengen der gik baglæns by Thomas Vinterberg. Her brother, Holger Thaarup, played the main character in the movie. Credited as Agnes Obel, she appears in two scenes. She plays a pupil who shares her table with the new student Andreas .
She attended high school at Det frie Gymnasium, a free school where she was able to play a good deal of music. However, she quickly dropped out of school. "At seventeen, I met a man who was running a studio. I gave up quickly my musical studies to learn sound techniques."
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