Steingrímur Rohloff was born in Iceland, where his Danish grandmother lived. His mother brought him to Germany, where he grew up near Hannover. The road back to the Danish roots went through studies first in Cologne and then in Paris, where he met a Danish woman who brought him to Denmark, where he has been living since 2003.
At Conservatoire National Superieur de Musique in Paris, his teachers included Gérard Grisey, who introduced him to the crystalline, Frensch orchestral music which has inspired his own compositions since then. Rohloff's list of works includes orchestral works and chamber music as well as electro-acoustic pieces and operas. In 2009 his children's opera Historien om en mor, (Story of a Mother) received the most prestigious Danish performing arts award: Reumert. Also the innovative chamber operas BABEL (2014) and LYSISTRATE (2016) demonstrate his talent of transforming the power of poetry and storytelling into music.
In the opera genre, his latest achievement is the album release of Medea/Lysistrate, recorded by Tuva Semmingsen and Esbjerg Ensemble, released by Dacapo Records in 2021. Also in 2021, the Danish Broadcasting Corporation selected Steingrímur Rohloff as the representative of Denmark at the International Rostrum of Composers. His work Die 4 Himmelsrichtungen, a virtuoso and dynamic piece written for clarinet, violin, cello and piano received an impressive fourth place in the competition.
Rohloff's music has been performed in more than 25 countries. He has written music for Ensemble Modern, the Icelandic Symphony Orchestra and Radiophilharmonie just to mention a few, and he has performances coming up in Konzerthaus Berlin and at Ultraschall in Berlin in the near future.
In Denmark, he has no less than three world premieres scheduled with Danish Symphony Orchestras. Copenhagen Phil will premiere Rohloff's symphonic song cycle, Schumann Fragmente in March 2022. Aalborg Symphony Orchestra commissioned a Concerto Grosso specifically for four soloists associated with the Berliner Philharmoniker, which will also be premiered in March 2022. Last but not least, Steingrímur Rohloff has written a Doppelgänger concerto for the two great viola players, Lawrence Powers and Rafaell Altino and Odense Symphony Orchestra.