Nicholas & Sebastian

Nicholas & Sebastian is an ongoing artistic collaboration between British composer Nicholas Sillitoe and Polish violinist/string arranger Sebastian Gruchot.​ Across much of Nicholas Sillitoe’s film soundtrack work, Sebastian Gruchot has been a central presence, contributing delicate violin textures to his distinctive score universe.

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Reveries

(2021)

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In the spring of 2020, during the Covid-19 pandemic, Nicholas & Sebastian took creative refuge in the forested outskirts of Kristiansand. They began a new project aimed at blending Nicholas’s melancholy post-classical piano style with Sebastian’s elegant, multi-layered strings. They quickly established a framework: music for daydreams.

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Inspired by the concept of imaginary film soundtracks and drawing upon minimalist improvisation, processed field recordings, and treated piano and strings, the duo began composing and recording a body of work that culminated in their debut album, Reveries. 

Unsure of where to place these emotive, tranquil pieces, Nicholas reached out to his publishers at Universal Music. They suggested licensing the material to their newly established music production label, Nordic ID.

Reveries, along with its key singles “When The Light Breaks”, “Just Say Know”, and “Sanctus", were subsequently released on digital streaming platforms throughout 2021.

Nicholas Sillitoe also teamed up with filmmaker Ola Røyseland to create short cinematic interpretations for five of the Reveries tracks, all filmed in atmospheric southern Norway locations.

Capturing the quiet, introspective mood of post-lockdown summer, the films include “When The Light Breaks” & “Just Say Know”, with a young cast evoking corona-era stillness and uncertainty; “Sanctus” - with boy soprano Florian Almedal Sillitoe performing in an empty Kristiansand Cathedral; “Nemo”, a black-and-white meditation on grief with Zyna Røyseland; and “The Deep Blue Air”, an otherworldly narrative on our fragile nature.

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These films served as album promos and were also presented in the immersive exhibition "Reveries: Music For Daydreams" at Agder Kunstsenter (September 2021), featuring individual screens, headphones, props, and Nicholas’s surround ambient mix.

From 2022 to 2024, Nicholas & Sebastian toured southern Norwegian schools with live performances, projected films, enhanced sound design, and production elements, creating a complete sensory experience.

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Atmosfera

(2026)

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Nicholas & Sebastian now return with Atmosfera, the long-awaited follow-up to Reveries.

The first glimpses of this new chapter came through the dual singles ​"Credo / Butterfly Blue", "White Line Fever / Aloneness", and "Crimson / Summerfade".

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A refined work of post-classical music, Atmosfera is a deeply introspective yet emotionally powerful response to the overwhelming noise of modern life: constant digital distraction, soulless urban planning, the destruction of nature, spiritual malaise, and the exhausting culture of woke and anti-woke polarisation. The album unfolds as music for imagined films and a quiet escape from doom-scrolling, offering space to breathe while remaining wide awake and present.

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As Nicholas reflects: Atmosfera takes introverted piano into a more immediate, expressive register. It is minimal yet carries strong forces, fragments of positivity and light shining through the darkness. This is music for stepping away from it all, but staying fully conscious.

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Featuring Sillitoe’s expressive piano compositions, layered with understated electronics and Gruchot’s delicate, radiant string arrangements, the album explores the eternal dance between shadow and light, movement and stillness, hope and impermanence. Deeply rooted in Nordic nature and seasonal shifts, it offers a sense of reflection, vulnerability, and inner clarity.

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Atmosfera releases on 17 April 2026 via Nordic ID / Universal Music.

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Nicholas & Sebastian’s music is available across all digital platforms, with several short films from Reveries also available online. 

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Photo: Ola Røyseland.