The Swell Season
The Swell Season was a folk rock duo formed by Irish musician Glen Hansard and Czech singer and pianist Markéta Irglová. "The Swell Season" name is derived from Hansard's favourite novel by Josef Škvorecký from 1975, of the same title. Their self-titled debut album was released in 2006.
The duo rose to prominence following the success of the 2007 film Once, directed by John Carney, in which the pair starred depicting a dramatised version of their own musical pairing. Their song "Falling Slowly" from the film's soundtrack won Best Original Song at the 80th Academy Awards. They increasingly referred to themselves as "The Swell Season" in promotion of their performances until it became the formal name of their collaboration in 2008; however, they continued to use their separate names when they contributed their cover of Bob Dylan's "You Ain't Goin' Nowhere" to the 2007 soundtrack of I'm Not There. In July 2026, Hansard died at the age of 56 following a motorbike crash.
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