Amund Bjørklund is a songwriter and record producer of Norwegian / Icelandic background. He is one half of the production team

Espionage Espionage, spying, or intelligence gathering, as a subfield of the intelligence field, is the act of obtaining secret or confidential information ( intelligence). A person who commits espionage on a mission-specific contract is called an ...

. He is also the co-founder of music school LIMPI in

Lillehammer Lillehammer () is a municipality in Innlandet county, Norway. It is located in the traditional district of Gudbrandsdal. The administrative centre of the municipality is the town of Lillehammer. Some of the more notable villages in the munici ...

. Amund's songs have sold in excess of 50 million singles and albums. Amund has also appeared as a judge on ''

Idol Idol or Idols may refer to: Religion and philosophy * Cult image, a human-made object that is venerated or worshipped for the deity, spirit or daemon that it embodies or represents * Murti, a devotional image of a deity or saint used during puja ...

''.

Writing and Producing

Amund originally collaborated with partner

Espen Lind Espen Lind (born 13 May 1971) is a Norwegian record producer, songwriter, singer, and multi-instrumentalist. He is one half of the production team Espionage, and together with his long time partner Amund Bjorklund he has written and/or produced ...

in 1997 for Lind's solo album ''Red''. Their partnership proved prolific with the success of the album in Europe and the pair have been co-writing ever since. In 2001, they solidified this working relationship with the formation of their songwriting and music production team

. Their next award-winning song was co-written for

Beyoncé Beyoncé Giselle Knowles-Carter ( ; born September 4, 1981) is an American singer, songwriter, actress, and businesswoman. With a career spanning over three decades, she has established herself as one of the most Cultural impact of Beyoncé, ...

in 2006. The international hit "

Irreplaceable "Irreplaceable" is a song by American singer Beyoncé for her second studio album, ''B'Day'' (2006). The song was written by Ne-Yo, Shaffer "Ne-Yo" Smith, Tor Erik Hermansen, Mikkel S. Eriksen, Espionage (production team), Espen Lind, Amund Bj� ...

” held the number one spot on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100 for ten consecutive weeks and won the pair a BMI Urban Award for song of the year in 2008. This massive success gave Amund international recognition as a songwriter and established him as an in-demand hit maker in the US. This recognition led to his feature as a judge in the fourth season of Norway's ''

''.

's success continued with the co-writing of

Chris Brown Christopher Maurice Brown (born May 5, 1989) is an American singer, songwriter, dancer, and actor. A Pop music, pop and hip-hop-influenced contemporary R&B, R&B musician who works in a variety of genres, he has been called the "Honorific nic ...

's hit " With You" in 2007. Amund and Lind later formed a working relationship with

Train A train (from Old French , from Latin">-4; we might wonder whether there's a point at which it's appropriate to talk of the beginnings of French, that is, when it wa ... , from Latin , "to pull, to draw") is a series of connected vehicles th ...

, co-writing and co-producing some of their most successful hits. Most notable are " Drive By" and

Grammy Award The Grammy Awards, stylized as GRAMMY, and often referred to as The Grammys, are awards presented by The Recording Academy of the United States to recognize outstanding achievements in music. They are regarded by many as the most prestigious ...

winning "

Hey, Soul Sister "Hey, Soul Sister" is a song by American rock band Train. It was written by lead singer Pat Monahan, Amund Bjørklund, and Espen Lind. It was released as the lead single from the band's fifth studio album, '' Save Me, San Francisco'' (2009). ...

". Along with writing partner Lind, Amund has written and/or produced songs for artists

Lionel Richie Lionel Brockman Richie Jr. (born June 20, 1949) is an American singer, songwriter, record producer, and television personality. He rose to fame in the 1970s as a songwriter and the co-lead singer of the Motown group Commodores; writing and recor ...

Ne-Yo Shaffer Chimere Smith (born October 18, 1979), known professionally as Ne-Yo ( ), is an American singer and songwriter. Regarded as a leading figure of Contemporary R&B#2000s, 2000s R&B music, he is the recipient of numerous accolades, includi ...

, and

Leona Lewis Leona Louise Lewis (born 3 April 1985) is a British singer, songwriter, actress, model, and activist. Born and raised in Islington, Inner London, she later attended the BRIT School for Performing Arts and Technology in Croydon. Lewis achieve ...

. ; ; Billboard Hot 100 Top 10 Singles * "

" -

* "

" -

* " Drive By" -

* " With You" -

; ;

LIMPI

In 2018, along with

Stargate ''Stargate'' is a military science fiction media franchise owned by Amazon MGM Studios. It is based on Stargate (film), the film directed by Roland Emmerich, which he co-wrote with producer Dean Devlin; production company StudioCanal owns the ...

producer Tor Erik Hermansen and composer Magnus Beite, Amund developed and opened the Lillehammer Institute of Music Production and Industries, also known as LIMPI, in

. The school was formed with the intention of having the music industry itself take charge in educating and nurturing the next generation of music makers, actually working on real life examples with some of the most experienced and reputable

artists An artist is a person engaged in an activity related to creating art, practicing the arts, or demonstrating the work of art. The most common usage (in both everyday speech and academic discourse) refers to a practitioner in the visual arts o ...

songwriter A songwriter is a person who creates musical compositions or writes lyrics for songs, or both. The writer of the music for a song can be called a composer, although this term tends to be used mainly in the classical music genre and film scoring. ...

s, and

producers Producer(s), The Producer(s), or co-producer(s) may refer to: Occupations *Producer (agriculture), a farm operator *Producer, a stakeholder of economic production * Film producer, supervises the making of films **Executive producer, contributes t ...

in the music industry, including Amund himself. LIMPI's core subjects are music production and the international music industry, offering an intensive, year-long course that culminates in a diploma in "Advanced Program in Professional Music Production and International Music Industries".

References

External Links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Bjorklund, Amund Norwegian record producers Grammy Award winners Year of birth missing (living people) Living people