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Ryuichi Sakamoto, 1952-2023
Composer Ryuichi Sakamoto died on March 28, 2023, in hospital in Tokyo, after a long battle with cancer. He was 71.
Sakamoto was born in Tokyo, Japan, in January 1952. He studied at the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music, earning a B.A. in music composition and an M.A. with special emphasis on both electronic and ethnic music. He studied ethnomusicology there with the intention of becoming a researcher in the field, due to his interest in various world music traditions, particularly the Japanese (especially Okinawan), Indian and African musical traditions.
Sakamoto began his musical career while at university as a session musician, producer, and arranger. His first major success came in 1978 as co-founder of Yellow Magic Orchestra (YMO), and with bandmates Haruomi Hosono and Yukihiro Takahashi, Sakamoto influenced and pioneered a number of electronic music genres. He concurrently pursued a solo career, releasing the experimental electronic fusion album Thousand Knives in 1978, and then the influential B-2 Unit in 1980.
Sakamoto began working in films, as a composer and actor, in Nagisa Oshima’s Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence in 1983. Sakamoto won the BAFTA Award for Best Film Music for his score – which was hugely popular in the UK. Then in 1987 Sakamoto wrote the score for Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Last Emperor with fellow composers David Byrne and Cong Su, and won the Academy Award, the Golden Globe, and a Grammy. Read more…
Christopher Gunning, 1944-2023
Composer Christopher Gunning died on March 25, 2023, at his home in Hertfordshire, England, after a short illness. He was 78.
Christopher Gunning was born in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, in August 1944, and studied at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama where his tutors included Edmund Rubbra and Richard Rodney Bennett.
Gunning beganm writing for film in the early 1970s, and his important early works included Goodbye Gemini (1970), the Hammer horror film Hands of the Ripper (1971), the film version of the smash hit sitcom Man About the House (1974), and Porterhouse Blue (1987), which which he received his first BAFTA Television Award.
Gunning’s most enduring contribution to film music came in 1989, when he composed the iconic theme tune for the TV series Poirot, starring David Suchet, for which he received his second BAFTA Television Award. Gunning would go on to score nearly all of the subsequent 70 Poirot TV films between 1989 and 2013. Read more…
IFMCA Award Winners 2022
INTERNATIONAL FILM MUSIC CRITICS ASSOCIATION ANNOUNCES WINNERS OF 2022 IFMCA AWARDS
BEAR MCCREARY WINS SCORE OF THE YEAR FOR EPIC TV SERIES THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE RINGS OF POWER; ALSO NAMED COMPOSER OF THE YEAR, WINS TWO OTHER AWARDS. SIMON FRANGLEN WINS TWO AWARDS FOR WORK ON AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER. DOCUMENTARY TRIBUTE TO LATE ENNIO MORRICONE HONORED WITH SPECIAL AWARD
FEBRUARY 23, 2023 — The International Film Music Critics Association (IFMCA) announces its list of winners for excellence in musical scoring in 2022, in the 2022 IFMCA Awards.
The award for Score of the Year goes to American composer Bear McCreary, for his score for the epic Amazon Prime television series The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. The series, which has a main theme by composer Howard Shore, is based on the extended writings of author J.R.R. Tolkien, and looks at events that took place in Middle Earth millennia before those portrayed in director Peter Jackson’s massively successful and popular Lord of the Rings and Hobbit films.
IFMCA member James Southall called The Rings of Power “a real triumph, undoubtedly McCreary’s own career-defining moment,” and IFMCA member Conrado Xalabarder said that the score was “one of the best in the history of music for television series … a work made from intelligence, commitment, and above all respect for Tolkien and the audience. All its central themes work impeccably, coherently, and they develop and interact with each other, creating first-rate narration and dramaturgy.” IFMCA member Jon Broxton similarly praised the score, saying “the level of research and intelligent design McCreary has done in terms of creating the musical structure of The Rings of Power is absolutely astonishing, and is probably unparalleled in the history of television music.”
This marks the first time a score written for television has been named Score of the Year by the IFMCA. The rules were changed earlier in 2022 to allow television and video game scores to compete alongside films for the top award. The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is also named Best Original Score for Television, while McCreary himself is named Composer of the Year, his first win in this category. McCreary’s other work in 2022 included the animated comedy Paws of Fury: The Legend of Hank, which is a re-imagining of the classic 1970s comedy Blazing Saddles; the epic video game God of War: Ragnarök (which also won the award for Best Original Score for a Video Game or Interactive Media); and continuing contributions to the most recent seasons of TV series such as Outlander, See, The Serpent Queen, The Walking Dead, and The Witcher: Blood Origin. These are the sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth IFMCA Awards of McCreary’s career. Read more…
BAFTA Winners 2022
The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) have announced the winners of the 76th British Academy Film Awards, honoring the best in film in 2022.
In the Best Original Music category, the winner was Volker Bertelmann, who took home the award for his work scoring the German-language World War I epic All Quiet on the Western Front. Accepting his award, Bertelmann said:
“Thank you so much. Thank you to all the BAFTA members for honoring that film, and also the music. That means a lot to me because that film showed me that humanity, empathy, and embracing diversity of human beings and nations is one thing that is the most important in our world. So, I’m very happy that I was a part of the film. I want to say thank you to my wife Elizabeth. To my three kids Lotta, Paulina, and Lucas. To Edward Berger and Malte Grunert, for their trust, and letting me do my thing, Being, you know, they just cut the leashes whenever I wanted to fly a little bit more. I want to say thank you to the wonderful cast and crew because without their craftsmanship I couldn’t do a good score. I would be a little bit helpless. I want to say thank you to Netflix for their support, and I want to say thank you to Patti Macmillan, my agent, and Thomas Mikusz, who are since the beginning of my career they are friends and supporters and they never doubted that this might have happened at some point. So thank you for this, and congratulations to my fellow nominees, and to all the others that are nominated and all the winners. Have a wonderful evening, enjoy it! Thank you.”
The other nominees were Carter Burwell for The Banshees of Inisherin, Alexandre Desplat for Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio, Justin Hurwitz for Babylon, and Son Lux for Everything Everywhere All at Once.
Gerald Fried, 1928-2023
Composer Gerald Fried died on February 17, 2023, in Bridgeport, Connecticut, from pneumonia. He was 95.
Gerald Fried was born in New York, New York, in February 1928, and grew up in the Bronx. He attended the Juilliard School of Music, initially as an oboe player, and later as a composer and conductor. After his graduation in 1945 he was first oboist with the Dallas Symphony, Pittsburgh Symphony and New York’s Little Orchestras. He moved to Los Angeles in 1957 and played for one season with the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
Fried had been introduced to movies by director Stanley Kubrick, a childhood friend; Fried scored the director’s first short, the 1951 film Day of the Fight, and went on to score Kubrick’s first four features: Fear and Desire in 1953, Killer’s Kiss in 1955, The Killing in 1956, and Paths of Glory in 1957.
After his move to Los Angeles Fried began composing and arranging music for television, and worked on numerous popular shows, including M Squad, Shotgun Slade, Riverboat, Gilligan’s Island, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Mission: Impossible, and Mannix, among many others. Perhaps his most famous piece of score was for ‘Amok Time’, the second season premiere episode of Star Trek, which featured a now-iconic fight sequence between Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock. Read more…
SCL Award Winners 2022
The Society of Composers and Lyricists (SCL) has announced the winners of the fourth annual SCL Awards, honoring the best in film and television music in 2022. The SCL is the premier professional trade group for composers, lyricists, and songwriters working in the motion picture, television, and game music industry, and is headquartered in Los Angeles. The winners are:
OUTSTANDING ORIGINAL SCORE FOR A STUDIO FILM
- MICHAEL ABELS for Nope
OUTSTANDING ORIGINAL SCORE FOR AN INDEPENDENT FILM
- SON LUX for Everything Everywhere All At Once
OUTSTANDING ORIGINAL SCORE FOR A TELEVISION OR STREAMING PRODUCTION
- CRISTOBAL TAPIA DE VEER for The White Lotus
OUTSTANDING ORIGINAL SONG FOR VISUAL MEDIA – DRAMA/DOCUMENTARY
- DIANE WARREN for “Applause” from Tell It Like A Woman
OUTSTANDING ORIGINAL SONG FOR VISUAL MEDIA- MUSICAL/COMEDY
- ALEXANDRE DESPLAT, ROEBAN KATZ, and GUILLERMO DEL TORO for “Ciao Papa” from Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio
OUTSTANDING ORIGINAL SCORE FOR INTERACTIVE MEDIA
- STEPHANIE ECONOMOU for Assassin’s Creed Valhalla: Dawn of Ragnarök
DAVID RAKSIN AWARD FOR EMERGING TALENT
- NAMI MELUMAD
SPIRIT OF COLLABORATION AWARD
- JUSTIN HURWITZ and DAMIEN CHAZELLE
Burt Bacharach, 1928-2023
Composer Burt Bacharach died on February 9, 2023, at home in Los Angeles after a short illness. He was 94.
Burt Freeman Bacharach was born in Kansas City, Missouri, in May 1928, but grew up in Queens, New York. He developed a keen interest in jazz as a teenager, after visiting jazz clubs and watching performances by Dizzy Gillespie and Count Basie. He studied music at McGill University in Montreal, at the Mannes School of Music in New York, and at the Music Academy of the West in California, where his teachers included classical greats like Darius Milhaud and Bohuslav Martinů.
After a stint in the US Army he worked as a pianist at resorts in the Catskill Mountains of New York, before going on to work as an arranger and conductor for legendary actress Marlene Dietrich’s nightclub shows. He met lyricist Hal David in 1957, and they began writing songs together; they scored an immediate hit with “Magic Moments” by Perry Como, which reached number 1 in the charts when Bacharach was just 29 years old. Read more…
IFMCA Award Nominations 2022
INTERNATIONAL FILM MUSIC CRITICS ASSOCIATION AWARDS NOMINATIONS ANNOUNCED
TELEVISON AND GAME SCORES ELIGIBLE FOR SCORE OF THE YEAR FOR FIRST TIME; BEAR MCCREARY, MICHAEL GIACCHINO, DANIEL PEMBERTON LEAD LIST OF NOMINATED COMPOSERS; COMPOSERS FROM EGYPT, FINLAND, JAPAN, POLAND, TURKEY, AMONG MANY OTHERS, ALL VYING FOR PRIZES
FEBRUARY 9, 2023. The International Film Music Critics Association (IFMCA) announces its list of nominees for excellence in musical scoring in 2022, for the 19th annual IFMCA Awards. Composers Bear McCreary, Michael Giacchino, and Daniel Pemberton lead the list of composer nominees with eight, seven, and five nominations respectively, closely followed by Simon Franglen (4), Alexandre Desplat (3), and John Williams (3).
American composer McCreary’s nominations are for his work on the epic Amazon Prime television series The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power based on the classic fantasy writings of J.R.R. Tolkien; the animated comedy Paws of Fury: The Legend of Hank, which is a re-imagining of the classic 1970s comedy Blazing Saddles; the epic video game God of War: Ragnarök; and for his continuing outstanding contributions to the most recent of TV series such as Outlander, See, The Serpent Queen, The Walking Dead, and The Witcher: Blood Origin. The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power received nominations for Score of the Year – the first television score nominated in that category in IFMCA history since the rule change to allow TV scores to be included was announced in 2022 – plus Best Television score, and for three different tracks in the Composition of the Year category, while McCreary himself was nominated for Composer of the Year.
IFMCA member James Southall called The Rings of Power “a real triumph, undoubtedly McCreary’s own career-defining moment,” and IFMCA member Conrado Xalabarder said that the score was “one of the best in the history of music for television series … a work made from intelligence, commitment and above all respect for Tolkien and the audience. All its central themes work impeccably, coherently, and they develop and interact with each other, creating first-rate narration and dramaturgy.” IFMCA member Jon Broxton similarly praised the score, saying “the level of research and intelligent design McCreary has done in terms of creating the musical structure of The Rings of Power is absolutely astonishing, and is probably unparalleled in the history of television music.” Read more…
Movie Music UK Awards 2022
The film music world got back to normal, mostly, after two years of COVID-related disruption, and ultimately roared back with a vengeance with a ton of great scores. I heard more than 650 scores in 2022 – either as a soundtrack album, in movie context, or both – and I ended up rating a whopping 79 of them **** or better.
Surprisingly, the best of the year’s music was dominated by scores for television – fantasy shows, super hero shows, westerns, gothic horrors, and more. The lines between ‘film music’ and ‘television music’ are becoming much more blurred; investment in multi-episode streaming series is almost on a par with traditional theatrical films, and as such the scores that accompany them are just as elaborate, dense, complex, and impressive as their big screen counterparts – perhaps even moreso, as composers have to structure their music with multi-season arcs in mind. As such, for the first time, I have decided to allow television and video game scores to compete on an equal footing with film scores for my coveted ‘Score of the Year’ award – and so, without further ado, here are my choices for the best scores of 2022. Read more…
Academy Award Nominations 2022
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) have announced the nominations for the 95th Academy Awards, honoring the best in film in 2022.
In the Best Original Score category, the nominees are:
- VOLKER BERTELMANN (HAUSCHKA) for All Quiet on the Western Front
- CARTER BURWELL for The Banshees of Inisherin
- JUSTIN HURWITZ for Babylon
- RYAN LOTT, RAFIQ BHATIA, and IAN CHANG (SON LUX) for Everything Everywhere All at Once
- JOHN WILLIAMS or The Fabelmans
This is the second Oscar nomination for Bertelmann, the third Oscar nomination for Burwell, the fourth Oscar nomination for Hurwitz (him having previously won for both song and score for La La Land in 2016), and the first nomination for the members of Son Lux.
Incredibly, this is the 53rd Oscar nomination for John Williams, which breaks his own record for being the most nominated living person, and maintains his position as the second most nominated person of all time after Walt Disney (who had 59). He previously won Academy Awards for Fiddler on the Roof in 1971, Jaws in 1975, Star Wars in 1977, E. T. The Extra-Terrestrial in 1982, and Schindler’s List in 1993.
In the Best Original Song category, the nominees are:
- STEPHANIE GERMANOTTA (LADY GAGA) and MICHAEL TUCKER (BLOODPOP) for “Hold My Hand” from Top Gun: Maverick
- M. M. KEERAVANI and KANUKUNTLA SUBHASH CHANDRABOSE for “Naatu Naatu” from RRR
- RYAN LOTT, DAVID BYRNE, and MITUSKI MIYAWAKI (MITSKI) for “This Is a Life” from Everything Everywhere All at Once
- TEMILADE OPENIYI (TEMS), ROBYN RIHANNA FENTY, RYAN COOGLER, and LUDWIG GÖRANSSON for “Lift Me Up” from Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
- DIANE WARREN for “Applause” from Tell It Like a Woman
The winners of the 95th Academy Awards will be announced on March 12, 2023
BAFTA Nominations 2022
The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) has announced the nominations for the 76th British Academy Film Awards, honoring the best in film in 2022.
In the Best Original Music category, which is named in memory of the film director Anthony Asquith, the nominees are:
- VOLKER “HAUSCHKA” BERTELMANN for All Quiet on the Western Front
- CARTER BURWELL for The Banshees of Inisherin
- ALEXANDRE DESPLAT for Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio
- JUSTIN HURWITZ for Babylon
- SON LUX for Everything Everywhere All at Once
This is the second BAFTA nomination for Bertelmann, the 12th BAFTA nomination for Desplat (who won the award for “The King’s Speech” in 2011, “The Grand Budapest Hotel” in 2014, and “The Shape of Water” in 2017), the second BAFTA nomination for Burwell, and the second BAFTA nomination for Hurwitz (who won the award for “La La Land” in 2016). The members of Son Lux – Ryan Lott, Rafiq Bhatia, and Ian Chang – are celebrating their first BAFTA nomination.
The winners of the 76th BAFTA Awards will be announced on 19 February, 2023.
Golden Globe Winners 2022
The Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) have announced the winners of the 80th Golden Globe Awards, honoring the best in film and American television of 2022.
In the Best Original Score category composer Justin Hurwitz won the award for his score for Babylon, a raucous and debauched look at three characters making their way through 1920s Hollywood as the movies transition from silents to talkies. Hurwitz wrote a huge homage to big band jazz, coupled with some more sentimental music accompanying the central relationships. This is the fourth Golden Globe for Hurwitz, from four nominations – he previously won awards for La-La Land in 2016 (both Best Score and Best Song), and First Man in 2018. In his acceptance speech, Hurwitz said:
“Thank you, guys, thank you so much. I’m very grateful that I had the opportunity to figure out at a young age that music was the thing for me. I’m grateful to my parents. I’m grateful to the public schools I went to that had music classes. I think a lot about all of the people out there who are really talented at something but never get the chance to figure out what that thing is. So I just think it’s so important to spread opportunity around, to make sure that everybody – kids and adults and everybody – has the opportunity to be exposed to things, to try things out, to figure out what’s for them, because I think things would be so much better if people could… I was very fortunate but I would be… things would be better if people could figure out the thing that they were good at, the thing the love doing more than anything else, and we just need opportunity, we need to spread the opportunity. Thank you Team Babylon, and thank you HFPA.”
The other nominees were Carter Burwell for The Banshees of Inisherin, Alexandre Desplat for Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio, Hildur Guðnadóttir for Women Talking, and John Williams for The Fabelmans.
In the Best Original Song category, the winners were M. M. Keeravani and Kanukuntla Subhash Chandrabose for their song “Naatu Naatu” from the epic Bollywood action movie RRR.
The other nominees were Alexandre Desplat, Roeben Katz, and Guillermo Del Toro for “Ciao Papa” from Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio; Stefani Germanotta (Lady Gaga), Michael Tucker (Bloodpop), and Benjamin Rice for “Hold My Hand” from Top Gun: Maverick; Temilade Openiyi (Tems), Robyn Rihanna Fenty, Ryan Coogler, and Ludwig Göransson for “Lift Me Up” from Black Panther: Wakanda Forever; and Taylor Swift for “Carolina” from Where the Crawdads Sing.
SCL Award Nominations 2022
The Society of Composers and Lyricists (SCL) has announced the nominations for the fourth annual SCL Awards, honoring the best in film and television music in 2022. The SCL is the premier professional trade group for composers, lyricists, and songwriters working in the motion picture, television, and game music industry, and is headquartered in Los Angeles. The nominees are:
OUTSTANDING ORIGINAL SCORE FOR A STUDIO FILM
- MICHAEL ABELS for Nope
- CARTER BURWELL for The Banshees of Inisherin
- ALEXANDRE DESPLAT for Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio
- MICHAEL GIACCHINO for The Batman
- JOHN POWELL for Don’t Worry Darling
OUTSTANDING ORIGINAL SCORE FOR AN INDEPENDENT FILM
- LEO BIRENBERG and ZACH ROBINSON for Weird: The Al Yankovic Story
- SHARON FARBER for Brainwashed: Sex-Camera-Power
- SON LUX for Everything Everywhere All At Once
- ROB SIMONSEN for The Whale
- MARK SMYTHE for The Reef: Stalked
OUTSTANDING ORIGINAL SCORE FOR A TELEVISION OR STREAMING PRODUCTION
- NICHOLAS BRITELL for Andor
- SIDDHARTHA KHOSLA for Only Murders In The Building
- BEAR MCCREARY for The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power
- THEODORE SHAPIRO for Severance
- CRISTOBAL TAPIA DE VEER for The White Lotus
OUTSTANDING ORIGINAL SONG FOR VISUAL MEDIA – DRAMA/DOCUMENTARY
- STEFANI GERMANOTTA (LADY GAGA) and MICHAEL TUCKER (BLOODPOP) for “Hold My Hand” from Top Gun: Maverick
- TEMILADE OPENIYI (TEMS), ROBYN RIHANNA FENTY, RYAN COOGLER, and LUDWIG GÖRANSSON for “Lift Me Up” from Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
- TRENT REZNOR and ATTICUS ROSS for “(You Made It Feel Like) Home” from Bones and All
- TAYLOR SWIFT for “Carolina” from Where The Crawdads Sing
- DIANE WARREN for “Applause” from Tell It Like A Woman
OUTSTANDING ORIGINAL SONG FOR VISUAL MEDIA- MUSICAL/COMEDY
- ALEXANDRE DESPLAT, ROEBAN KATZ, and GUILLERMO DEL TORO for “Ciao Papa” from Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio
- DANNY ELFMAN for “Light The Match” from Central Park
- BENJ PASEK, JUSTIN PAUL, KHIYON HURSEY, SUKARI JONES, and MARK SONNENBLICK for “Good Afternoon” from Spirited
- MARC SHAIMAN and BILLY EICHNER, for “Love Is Not Love” from Bros
- AL YANKOVIC for “Now You Know” from Weird: The Al Yankovic Story
OUTSTANDING ORIGINAL SCORE FOR INTERACTIVE MEDIA
- NAINITA DESAI for Immortality
- STEPHANIE ECONOMOU for Assassin’s Creed Valhalla: Dawn of Ragnarök
- BEAR MCCREARY for God of War: Ragnarök
- WINIFRED PHILLIPS for Jurassic World: Primal Ops
- CHRISTOPHER WILLIS for Cat Burglar
DAVID RAKSIN AWARD FOR EMERGING TALENT
- ESIN AYDINGOZ
- ANNA DRUBICH
- DEANDRE JAMES ALLEN-TOOLE
- NAMI MELUMAD
- DARA TAYLOR
SPIRIT OF COLLABORATION AWARD
- To be announced at a later date
The winners of the 4th SCL Awards will be announced on 15 February, 2023.
Golden Globe Nominations 2022
The Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) has announced the nominations for the 80th Golden Globe Awards, honoring the best in film and American television of 2022.
In the Best Original Score category, the nominees are:
- CARTER BURWELL for The Banshees of Inisherin
- ALEXANDRE DESPLAT for Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio
- HILDUR GUÐNADÓTTIR for Women Talking
- JUSTIN HURWITZ for Babylon
- JOHN WILLIAMS for The Fabelmans
This is the fourth nomination for Burwell; the 14th nomination for Desplat, who previously won Globes for The Painted Veil in 2006 and The Shape of Water in 2017; the second nomination for Guðnadóttir, who previously won for Joker in 2019; the fourth nomination for Hurwitz, who previously won for La-La Land in 2016 and First Man in 2018 ; and the 26th nomination for Williams, who previously won Globes in 1975 for Jaws, 1977 for Star Wars, 1982 for E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, and 2005 for Memoirs of a Geisha.
In the Best Original Song category, the nominees are:
- ALEXANDRE DESPLAT, ROEBEN KATZ, and GUILLERMO DEL TORO for “Ciao Papa” from Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio
- STEFANI GERMANOTTA (LADY GAGA), MICHAEL TUCKER (BLOODPOP), and BENJAMIN RICE for “Hold My Hand” from Top Gun: Maverick
- M. M. KEERAVANI and KANUKUNTLA SUBHASH CHANDRABOSE for “Naatu Naatu” from RRR
- TEMILADE OPENIYI (TEMS), ROBYN RIHANNA FENTY, RYAN COOGLER, and LUDWIG GÖRANSSON for “Lift Me Up” from Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
- TAYLOR SWIFT for “Carolina” from Where the Crawdads Sing
The winners of the 80th Golden Globe Awards will be announced on January 10, 2023.
Angelo Badalamenti, 1937-2022
Composer Angelo Badalamenti died on December 11, 2022, at home in New Jersey after a short illness. He was 85.
Angelo Daniel Badalamenti was born in New York City in March 1937, the son of Italian immigrants from Sicily. A piano player from a young age, Badalamenti was already earning money as a pianist accompanying singers at resorts in the Catskill Mountains in his teens; he later studied at the Eastman School of Music at the University of Rochester, and then at the Manhattan School of Music, graduating with a master’s degree in 1959.
He began his career as a songwriter, penning works for singers such as Nina Simone and Shirley Bassey using the pen name Andy Badale. He made his film music debut was early as 1973, scoring the blaxploitation action pic Gordon’s War, but his break came when he was hired to be Isabella Rossellini’s vocal coach for David Lynch’s 1986 film Blue Velvet. Impressed with his work, Lynch asked Badalamenti to co-write the song “Mysteries of Love” for vocalist Julee Cruise, and then asked Badalamenti to composed the score for the entire film. Read more…
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