Sven Libaek profile picture

Sven Libaek

About Me

The following biography was written by Sven Libaek:Sven Libaek was born in Norway in 1938, and trained early as both a musician and an actor. He first achieved international recognition with his role in the Louis deRochemont film Windjammer where he was able to combine his love for music and acting with his appearance as a soloist with Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops. Libaek first came to Australia in 1960 as a member of the band, The Windjammers, which toured in both the USA and Australia to promote the film. Shortly after the group broke up, Libaek and his wife returned to Australia to live.Libaek has scored many films & TV series, including Nature Walkabout, Boney, Inner Space, Big Country, The World Around Us, Joe Wilson, and The Settlement, as well as dozens of documentaries and industrial films. He worked with Maurice Jarre as musical coordinator and orchestrator for Peter Weir's film The Year of Living Dangerously and also hosted his own TV show on ABC called All about Music. The 2004 Wes Anderson film, Life Aquatic, featured five of Libaek's compositions as part of its score.Libaek lived and worked in Los Angeles from 1977 to 1994 where he orchestrated more than 300 popular songs for US radio stations and artists including Lionel Ritchie and Neil Diamond, and was engaged by Hanna-Barbera in Hollywood to score the music to ten two-hour animated TV movie specials.During his career, Libaek has had more than 30 record albums released. He has composed serious concert works for instruments including the piano, classical guitar, flute and clarinet. For the Australian Centenary of Federation he was commissioned by the Sutherland Shire Council to compose a special work for Symphony Orchestra, Choir and Brass Band, with words by his wife Lolita Rivera. Called The First Shire, it was performed at Cronulla Beach in front of 10,000 people in January 2001.Libaek is principal conductor of The Sutherland Shire Symphony Orchestra and President of the Music Arrangers Guild of Australia. He has worked as an adjudicator and piano teacher, and early in his musical career, was Musical Director and A&R Manager for CBS Records as well as General Manager for April Music Publishing Company for four years. He is currently Composer-in-Residence at Port Hacking High School and frequently lectures at the Australian Film, Television and Radio School in Sydney.Libaek is currently completing the score to a Sydney Maritime Museum documentary about the restoration of the magnificent sailing ship the James Craig, and putting the final touches on his first Piano Concerto.*PLEASE NOTE: This site is not maintained, affiliated, or endorsed by Sven Libaek. I am just a fan trying to preserve his amazing music and share it with anyone that can appreciate it. Thank you for your support!*

My Interests

Music:

Member Since: 16/07/2006
Record Label: Peer International, Festival, Starborne

My Blog

two new releases

Wow, sorry it's been awhile. Finally though there's two new Sven Libaek releases available - and they're both absolute classics. The awesome folks over at Vadim have reissued 1974's Solar Flares on cd...
Posted by on Sun, 13 May 2007 17:44:00 GMT

Fresh Uploads

Hello all, it's recently come to my attention that most (if not ALL) of the links for albums have gone down. Well, I've re-uploaded them all, and lumped them up here in one convenient space for everyo...
Posted by on Wed, 29 Nov 2006 15:46:00 GMT

Inner Space - The Lost Film Music of Sven Libaek

Well, I can die with a smile on my face I guess, as I just received my LP in the mail this evening. It's always nice to work yourself near to death at the office and then come home to a record shaped ...
Posted by on Mon, 16 Oct 2006 14:49:00 GMT

Music and Updates

Hi all, sorry for the lack of updates, but I've been pretty busy lately. I've got a lot of good stuff today though; some great news and TWO awesome downloads to enjoy. Thing the FirstI'd like to start...
Posted by on Sat, 02 Sep 2006 13:52:00 GMT

Some quick miscellany

I just stumbled across a few interesting Sven-related sites. The first one is the Australian Music Centre, kind of a resource for composers, students, teachers, and musicians in general, there are a g...
Posted by on Fri, 11 Aug 2006 16:03:00 GMT

Let me show you my boat

Hey Life Aquatic fans, just thought you might like to see something interesting I encountered. Apparently, if you've got the cash, you can be the proud new owner of the Belafonte (aka Jenny aka ...
Posted by on Fri, 11 Aug 2006 15:03:00 GMT