MUSIC
Since the seventies Elin Brimheim Heinesen has been well-known in the Faroe Islands as a singer/songwriter/composer. She performs and makes music as a soloist but has also worked with several other artists from time to time – the co-work with Faroese composer/producer Kári Linderoth Jacobsen being the most well known in the Faroes, with whom she published their debut album NALJA in 1988, and the co-work with the band Ad Libitum with whom she published the album “Yndisløg” (Treasured Songs) in 2010.
Although she in a long time didn’t release more than one album – the NALJA album – with five of ten tracks written and composed by her and the other five by Kári, these songs have none the less been very well received and popular in her home country and still get a lot of airplay. One could rightfully claim they have become classics.
In early 2018 Elin finally went to a studio to record her first solo album – “Handan stjørnurnar” (Beyond The Stars) solely with her own music.
And in December 2023 she released an album with contemporary classical symphonic music – “Eitt dýpi av dýrari tíð – A Chasm of Precious Time” – with music she set to her father, Jens Pauli Heinesen’s lyrics. At FMA 2022, she received an award for her father’s lyrics to the song “Sóleyan lýsir um fløtur” from the album, which she had released as a single before the entire album was published.
More details HERE.
LISTEN TO ELIN BRIMHEIM HEINESEN
EDUCATION
Elin holds a university degree (Cand.Mag.) in aesthetics and culture and also has an education in business economics from Copenhagen Business School as well as being an educated screenwriter from Den Danske Filmskole (the Danish Film School).
More details HERE.
WORK EXPERIENCE
Elin has wide-ranging experience in the fields of internet, marketing, media and culture and has worked in communication and marketing for many years as head of media and marketing, journalist and editor in chief in on-line and printed media.
Elin was, for example, an international marketing coordinator for Copenhagen as the European Capital of Culture in 1996.
During the last 5 of the 25 years she spent in Denmark before moving back to the Faroe Islands in 2007, she was the editor-in-chief of KIWI Magazine, a Danish women’s and consumer magazine, which she co-founded. The magazine had 430,000 readers according to a Gallup survey in 2006.
In 2007, she moved to the Faroe Islands to take on the role of CEO at SamViti – Faroe Islands Enterprise, Faroese Trade and Tourism Council, which after 2 years was merged with the Faroese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
In 2009, she became media director at Kringvarp Føroya.
In May 2012, she left Kringvarp Føroya to become an independent copywriter, journalist, editor, and communications consultant. She ran an online music magazine and worked as a freelance journalist.
In 2015, she took on a new permanent role as the head of the Student Services Center at the University of the Faroe Islands (Fróðskaparsetur Føroya), handling tasks related to communication, information, guidance, administration, and academics, particularly relating to the studies of future, current, and former students.
In 2018, she was offered the position of head of the Audiobook Service at Landsbókasavnið (the National Library) in the Faroe Islands, which remains her current position. She is responsible for the production and distribution of Faroese audiobooks. The purpose of the Audiobook Service is to ensure that, primarily, people with special needs have as much access as possible to reading materials published in Faroese, including in formats other than print media.
More details HERE.
PRIVATE LIFE
Elin was born 25. June in 1958 in Tórshavn, the Faroe Islands, where she grew up with her parents, Jens Pauli Heinesen, author and teacher, and Maud Heinesen (born Brimheim), children’s book author and administration manager at the University of the Faroe Islands.
Elin went to Denmark to study in her mid twenties and stayed in the country for 25 years, most of the time living and working in Copenhagen, until she moved back to the Faroes in 2007, where she lives today.
Elin married a Danish man in 1989 with whom she had one daughter. They later divorced in 1997.
If you are interested in reading a more personal and thorough description of Elin’s life and career, you can learn more HERE.
THE DAUGHTER
Elin’s daughter, Helena Heinesen Rebensdorff, born in 1990, went on to pursue a music career just like her mother. But Helena has taken it much further. She has a Bachelor’s Degree in Songwriting from the Royal Academy of Music in Aarhus and a Master’s Degreen in Music Creation from the Rhythmic Music Conservatory (RMC) in Copenhagen.
Helena now works as a professional musician under the artist name BRIMHEIM and lives in Malmö, Sweden, with her wife Lorri Lin, but spends her daily life in Copenhagen, Denmark, where she has her professional base. BRIMHEIM is quite well-known in Denmark, where her music gets a lot of airplay in Danish radio. She plays concerts at the main scenes and festivals with her band there, and has also toured other countries. BRIMHEIM has gotten a plethora of rave reviews for her published music and her concerts.
She has been nominated several times for the FMA – Faroe Music Awards, and she has won a total of eight FMA awards – in 2021 as New Artist of the Year, in 2022 as Female Singer of the Year, Band of the Year, and for Song of the Year (“Hey Amanda”), as well as in 2024 for Song of the Year (“Literally Everything”) and Visual Identity of the Year. In 2025, she won two awards – one as Composer of the Year and another for Album of the Year (the album “RATKING”). Additionally, she was awarded the Carl Prize by the Danish music publishers as Talent of the Year in 2022, which included a prize of 30,000 DKK.
Check out BRIMHEIM’s webpage.
