Archive
Golden Globe Winners 2024
The Golden Globe Foundation (GGF) has announced the winners of the 82nd Golden Globe Awards, honoring the best in film and American television of 2024.
In the Best Original Score category composers Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross won the award for their upbeat electro-pop inspired score for Challengers, director Luca Guadagnino’s spicy drama starring Zendaya, Josh O’Connor, and Mike Feist, about a love triangle that develops over several years in the world of professional tennis. This is the third Golden Globe win for Reznor and Ross – they previously won for The Social Network in 2010, and for Soul in 2020. In the acceptance speech Ross, speaking on behalf of both men, said:
“Thank you to Golden Globes, this really means a lot, particularly in this special moment. First I’d like to thank my best friend, my musical partner, the great talent Trent Reznor. The music that revealed itself as the voice to Challengers never felt like a safe choice, but it always felt like the right one. I’d like to thank the maestro, the visionary director, and our friend Luca Guadagnino – where is he? – for his unwavering support and commitment to the idea. In fact I’d like to thank everyone that helped bring this film to life, and to acknowledge Amy Pascal, Rachel O’Connor, and the fabulous Zendaya, for their encouragement. To be honest we always we thought we’d get the call – ‘can you just turn it down a little bit’ – but it never came, and here we are. Lastly, we want to thank the most important people in our lives, our wives and our children. Mariqueen [Maandiq], Trent loves you. Claudia [Sarne], I love you. And all the kids, we love you. Thank you! ”
The other nominees were Volker Bertelmann for Conclave, Daniel Blumberg for The Brutalist, Kris Bowers for The Wild Robot, Clément Ducol and Camille Dalmais for Emilia Pérez, and Hans Zimmer for Dune: Part 2
In the Best Original Song category, the winners were Clément Ducol, Camille Dalmais, and Jacques Audiard for “El Mal” from the audacious Mexican drug cartel musical drama Emilia Pérez.
The other nominees were Brittany Amaradio (Delacey), Jordan K. Johnson, Stefan Johnson, Maren Morris, Michael Pollack, and Ali Tamposi for “Kiss The Sky” from The Wild Robot; Clément Ducol and Camille Dalmais for “Mi Camino” from Emilia Pérez; Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross, and Luca Guadagnino for “Compress/Repress” from Challengers; Robbie Williams, Freddy Wexler, and Sacha Skarbek for “Forbidden Road” from Better Man; and Andrew Wyatt, Miley Cyrus, and Li Lykke Zachrisson (Lykke Li) for “Beautiful That Way” from The Last Showgirl.
SCL Award Nominations 2024
The Society of Composers and Lyricists (SCL) has announced the nominations for the sixth annual SCL Awards, honoring the best in film and television music in 2024. 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
- VOLKER BERTELMANN for Conclave
- KRIS BOWERS for The Wild Robot
- CLÉMENT DUCOL and CAMILLE DALMAIS for Emilia Pérez
- HARRY GREGSON-WILLIAMS for Gladiator II
- JOHN POWELL and STEPHEN SCHWARTZ for Wicked: Part 1
- HANS ZIMMER for Dune: Part Two
OUTSTANDING ORIGINAL SCORE FOR AN INDEPENDENT FILM
- CHRIS BACON for Heretic
- DANIEL BLUMBERG for The Brutalist
- STEPHANIE ECONOMOU for The Book of Jobs
- FABRIZIO MANCINELLI for Here After
- HEATHER MCINTOSH for Winner
- DARA TAYLOR for Meet Me Next Christmas
Golden Globe Nominations 2024
The Golden Globe Foundation (GGF) has announced the nominations for the 82nd Golden Globe Awards, honoring the best in film and American television of 2024.
In the Best Original Score category, the nominees are:
- VOLKER BERTELMANN for Conclave
- DANIEL BLUMBERG for The Brutalist
- KRIS BOWERS for The Wild Robot
- CLÉMENT DUCOL and CAMILLE DALMAIS for Emilia Pérez
- TRENT REZNOR and ATTICUS ROSS for Challengers
- HANS ZIMMER for Dune: Part 2
These are the first nominations for Blumberg, Bowers, Ducol, and Dalmais. It is the second nomination for Bertelmann, the sixth nomination for Reznor and Ross, and the fifteenth nomination for Zimmer. Reznor and Ross previously won for The Social Network in 2010 and Soul in 2020. Zimmer previously won for The Lion King in 1994, Gladiator in 2000, and Dune in 2021
In the Best Original Song category, the nominees are:
- BRITTANY AMARADIO (DELACEY), JORDAN K. JOHNSON, STEFAN JOHNSON, MAREN MORRIS, MICHAEL POLLACK, and ALI TAMPOSI for “Kiss the Sky” from The Wild Robot
- CLÉMENT DUCOL and CAMILLE DALMAIS for “Mi Camino” from Emilia Pérez
- CLÉMENT DUCOL, CAMILLE DALMAIS, and JACQUES AUDIARD for “El Mal” from Emilia Pérez
- TRENT REZNOR, ATTICUS ROSS, and LUCA GUADAGNINO for “Compress/Repress” from Challengers
- ROBBIE WILLIAMS, FREDDY WEXLER, and SACHA SKARBEK for “Forbidden Road” from Better Man
- ANDREW WYATT, MILEY CYRUS, and LI LYKKE ZACHRISSON (LYKKE LI) for “Beautiful That Way” from The Last Showgirl
The winners of the 82nd Golden Globe Awards will be announced on January 5, 2025.
Quincy Jones, 1933-2024
Composer Quincy Jones died on November 3, 2024, after a short illness. He was 91 years old.
Quincy Delight Jones Jr. – known to all as ‘Q’ – was born in Chicago, Illinois, in March 1933. Jones grew up in a challenging environment, with his mother battling schizophrenia and his father working as a carpenter and semi-professional baseball player. When he was ten, his family moved to Seattle, Washington, where he met future jazz great Ray Charles. The two became fast friends, and Jones, a natural musician, learned trumpet, piano, and arranging. He attended Seattle’s Garfield High School and later earned a scholarship to study at the prestigious Berklee College of Music in Boston. However, he left before finishing to tour with jazz great Lionel Hampton, marking his entry into the world of professional music.
In the 1950s, Jones moved to New York City and became immersed in the jazz scene, working with icons like Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, and Count Basie. He also collaborated with major record labels as an arranger and conductor. By the late 1950s, Jones was touring Europe and later moved to Paris, studying composition and orchestration under Nadia Boulanger, a legendary music teacher. Read more…
Richard M. Sherman, 1928-2024
Composer Richard M. Sherman, one of the greatest and most influential songwriters in the history of Hollywood, died on May 25, 2024, after a short illness. He was 95 years old.
Richard Morton Sherman was born in New York, New York, in June 1928, the son of Russian Jewish immigrants. He grew up in a musical household – his father, Al, was a composer and arranger in Tin Pan Alley in New York, and was a contemporary of George Gershwin – and then after the Shermans relocated to Los Angeles in 1937 Richard attended Beverly Hills High School, where he was a classmate of André Previn. After completing his national service, Sherman and his brother Robert started a songwriting company, and they enjoyed success writing popular songs for artists including Annette Funicello. This success brought them to the attention of producer Walt Disney, who eventually hired them as staff songwriters for the Walt Disney Studio.
Sherman wrote songs for several Disney productions in the early 1960s, including The Absent Minded Professor (1961), The Parent Trap (1961), and The Sword in the Stone (1963), but achieved lasting fame and critical acclaim following the release of Mary Poppins in 1964. The songs that Sherman wrote for that production – “Feed the Birds,” “A Spoonful of Sugar,” “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious,” “Chim-Chim-Cheree,” and “Let’s Go Fly a Kite,” among others – became immediate classics and pop culture icons, and won Sherman Oscars for Best Original Score and Best Original Song. Read more…
Jan A.P. Kaczmarek, 1953-2024
Composer Jan A.P. Kaczmarek died on May 21, 2024, at the age of 71. He had been in hospice care for several years, after being diagnosed with multiple system atrophy in 2022.
Jan Andrzej Paweł Kaczmarek was born in Konin, Poland, in April 1953. Originally intending to be a lawyer, he graduated from Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań with a law degree, specializing in legal theory and philosophy of law. However, he switched careers to focus on music in the 1970s, and spent several years working with experimental theater companies, and writing music for stage productions. He and his first wife Elżbieta moved to Los Angeles in the 1980s, where he wrote music for the Mark Taper Forum and Chicago’s Goodman Theatre. In 1992 he won the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Music in a Play for his incidental music for director JoAnne Akalaitis’s new version of ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore.
Kaczmarek had written music for a handful of small-budget features and TV movies in his native Poland in the 1980s and early 1990s, but he first came to international attention in 1995 with his score for director Agnieszka Holland’s Total Eclipse, about the life of poet Arthur Rimbaud, played by Leonardo di Caprio. He continued to work on a series of acclaimed films throughout the 1990s and early 2000, including arthouse dramas like Bliss (1996), Washington Square (1997), Aimée & Jaguar (1999), and The Third Miracle (1999), and more mainstream fare like the horror thriller Lost Souls (2000), and the erotic drama Unfaithful (2002). He often worked with Polish directors making English-language films – Holland, Janusz Kamiński, Yurek Bogayevicz – and he invariably wrote music that was elegant, technically masterful, emotionally poignant, but subtle, conveying a distinctly European sensibility. Read more…
Academy Award Winners 2023
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) have announced the winners of the 96th Academy Awards, honoring the best in film in 2023.
In the Best Original Score category Ludwig Göransson won the award for his score for Oppenheimer, director Christopher Nolan’s epic drama about the life and work of the theoretical physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer whose work on the Manhattan Project in the 1940s led to the creation of the world’s first nuclear weapon. Accepting his award, Göransson said:
“Thank you Christopher Nolan and Emma Thomas for inviting me on this incredible world. Christopher Nolan it was your idea to use the violin in the score, and it allowed me to work and collaborate with my wonderful wife and acclaimed violinist Serena Göransson. We had… we recorded at night and we were rushing to home and put our kids Apollo and Romeo down to bed, but the result of that was amazing and it really set a really nice tone for the film of that performance. Theresa Stanislav, Jake Brown, Chris Fogel, Anthony Parnther, Alyssa Park, thank you for making the music sound great, and to my parents up there, thank you for giving me guitars and drum machines instead of video games! Thank you!
The other nominees were Joscelin Dent-Pooley (Jerskin Fendrix) for Poor Things, Laura Karpman for American Fiction, Robbie Robertson for Killers of the Flower Moon, and John Williams for Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.
In the Best Original Song category, the winners were Billie Eilish and Finneas O’Connell for “What Was I Made For” from the smash hit movie Barbie.
The other nominees were Jon Batiste and Dan Wilson for “It Never Went Away” from American Symphony, Scott George for “Wahzhazhe – A Song for My People” from Killers of the Flower Moon, Mark Ronson and Andrew Wyatt for “I’m Just Ken” from Barbie, and Diane Warren for “The Fire Inside” from Flamin’ Hot.
In film-music adjacent news, composer Kris Bowers also won an Oscar, not for music, but for co-directing and producing the documentary short film The Last Repair Shop, which is about a workshop in Los Angeles who find, repair, and donate musical instruments to under-privileged students in the Los Angeles Unified School District. This makes Bowers one of the few full-time film music composers to win an Academy Award for something other that composing.
IFMCA Award Winners 2023
INTERNATIONAL FILM MUSIC CRITICS ASSOCIATION ANNOUNCES WINNERS OF 2023 IFMCA AWARDS
JOHN WILLIAMS WINS SCORE OF THE YEAR FOR FIFTH INDIANA JONES FILM, DIAL OF DESTINY; CHRISTOPHER YOUNG WINS FOUR AWARDS FOR OUTSTANDING WORK IN HORROR FIELD; COMPOSERS FROM JAPAN AND POLAND ALSO TAKE HOME AWARDS
FEBRUARY 22, 2024 — The International Film Music Critics Association (IFMCA) announces its list of winners for excellence in musical scoring in 2023, in the 2023 IFMCA Awards.
The award for Score of the Year goes to American composer John Williams, for his score for Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, the fifth film in the beloved action-adventure series starring Harrison Ford as the eponymous globetrotting archaeologist. The score also won the award for its genre, being named Best Score for an Action/Adventure film.
IFMCA member James Southall praised Dial of Destiny as “a nostalgic throwback to those great times of the past – a set of meticulously-composed new music by one of the greatest film composers we’ve ever had – an exhibition in skill and technique with the orchestra which is guaranteed to go beyond almost any other film music we hear this year.” IFMCA member Christian Clemmensen said that the score was “an especially gratifying treat and an immense pleasure to hear in the 2020’s… it continues to espouse the uniquely superior aspects of Williams’s writing from decades past”. Similarly, IFMCA member Anton Smit said the score was “a fantastic listening experience from start to finish… a masterpiece… one of the highlights of this final phase of John Williams’ career.”
This is John Williams’s fifth Score of the Year victory, having previously won for Memoirs of a Geisha in 2005, War Horse in 2011, Star Wars: The Force Awakens in 2015, and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker in 2019. These wins also take Williams’s all-time IFMCA win tally to 21, not including those for archival releases of his older scores, making him the most-awarded composer in IFMCA history. Read more…
BAFTA Winners 2023
The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) have announced the winners of the 77th British Academy Film Awards, honoring the best in film in 2023.
In the Best Original Music category, the winner was Ludwig Göransson, who won the award for his score for Oppenheimer, director Christopher Nolan’s epic drama about the life and work of the theoretical physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer whose work on the Manhattan Project in the 1940s led to the creation of the world’s first nuclear weapon. Accepting his award, Göransson said:
“Thank you to the BAFTA, and thank you Chris [Nolan] and Emma [Thomas], for all the love and dedication your poured into Oppenheimer. Chris, also thank you so much for spending so much time with me working on this music. All the time you allowed for experimentation, listening to my music over and over again, dissecting the score, talking about the sounds, the themes, and making it into the musical world of Oppenheimer meant… it meant everything to me. That was an incredible experience. I want to also thank all the musicians that poured their hearts into playing on this score and making the music come alive. Without them it wouldn’t be possible. And I also want to thank my partner in life and music, Serena, I love you.”
The other nominees were Jerskin Fendrix for Poor Things, Daniel Pemberton for Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, Robbie Robertson for Killers of the Flower Moon, and Anthony Willis for Saltburn.
SCL Award Winners 2023
The Society of Composers and Lyricists (SCL) has announced the winners of the fifth annual SCL Awards, honoring the best in film and television music in 2023. 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
- LUDWIG GÖRANSSON for Oppenheimer
OUTSTANDING ORIGINAL SCORE FOR AN INDEPENDENT FILM
- JOHN POWELL for Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie
OUTSTANDING ORIGINAL SCORE FOR A TELEVISION OR STREAMING PRODUCTION
- NICHOLAS BRITELL for Succession
OUTSTANDING ORIGINAL TITLE SEQUENCE FOR A TELEVISION PRODUCTION
- CARLOS RAFAEL RIVERA for Lessons in Chemistry
OUTSTANDING ORIGINAL SONG FOR VISUAL MEDIA – DRAMA/DOCUMENTARY
- OLIVIA RODRIGO and DAN NIGRO for “Can’t Catch Me Now” from The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes
OUTSTANDING ORIGINAL SONG FOR VISUAL MEDIA- MUSICAL/COMEDY
- BILLIE EILISH and FINNEAS O’CONNELL for “What Was I Made For?” from Barbie
OUTSTANDING ORIGINAL SCORE FOR INTERACTIVE MEDIA
- STEPHEN BARTON and GORDY HAAB for Star Wars Jedi: Survivor
DAVID RAKSIN AWARD FOR EMERGING TALENT
- CATHERINE JOY
SPIRIT OF COLLABORATION AWARD
- MARTIN SCORSESE and ROBBIE ROBERTSON
IFMCA Nominations 2023
INTERNATIONAL FILM MUSIC CRITICS ASSOCIATION AWARDS NOMINATIONS ANNOUNCED
JOHN WILLIAMS AND CHRISTOPHER YOUNG LEAD LIST OF NOMINATED COMPOSERS WITH FOUR NOMINATIONS EACH;MULTIPLE COMPOSERS FROM JAPAN AND POLAND AMONG MAJOR NOMINEES
FEBRUARY 8, 2024. The International Film Music Critics Association (IFMCA) announces its list of nominees for excellence in musical scoring in 2023, for the 20th annual IFMCA Awards. Composers John Williams and Christopher Young lead the list of composer nominees with four nominations each, closely followed by Lorne Balfe, Stephen Barton, Ludwig Göransson, and Bear McCreary, who each have three.
Legendary American composer Williams’s nominations are all for his work on Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, the fifth film in the beloved action-adventure series starring Harrison Ford as the eponymous globetrotting archaeologist. Dial of Destiny received nominations for Score of the Year, Best Action/Adventure score, and Composition of the Year for the score’s main theme, “Helena’s Theme,” while Williams himself was nominated for Composer of the Year.
IFMCA member James Southall praised Dial of Destiny as “a nostalgic throwback to those great times of the past – a set of meticulously-composed new music by one of the greatest film composers we’ve ever had – an exhibition in skill and technique with the orchestra which is guaranteed to go beyond almost any other film music we hear this year.” Similarly, IFMCA member Christian Clemmensen said that the score was “an especially gratifying treat and an immense pleasure to hear in the 2020’s. It extends the quality of the prior two [Indiana Jones] works and continues to espouse the uniquely superior aspects of Williams’s writing from decades past”. Read more…
Movie Music UK Awards 2023
This year was a fascinating year for me in terms of film music, mainly because for the majority of it there wasn’t one runaway winner for Score of the Year. In recent years there has been a Rings of Power or some other clear front runner, but that wasn’t the case this year – instead there were a very large group of four and four-and-a-half star scores, any of which could have taken top honors depending on the slightest vagaries of personal taste, composer affection, or film quality. I heard more than 700 scores in 2023 – either as a soundtrack album, in movie context, or both – and I ended up rating 84 of them **** or better.
There were an especially large number of excellent scores from outside the mainstream Hollywood system – especially China, France, Japan, and Poland – which again indicates that the world of film music remains as rich and vibrant as it ever was, provided you are willing to put in some effort and explore beyond the confines of the mainstream Hollywood system. There were also a large number of exceptional TV scores, video game scores, and even scores for animated short films that left a significantly positive impression. As such, as was the case last year, I decided to continue to allow television and video game scores to compete on an equal footing with film scores for my coveted ‘Score of the Year’ award –
So, without further ado, here are my choices for the best scores of 2023! Read more…
Academy Award Nominations 2023
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) have announced the nominations for the 96th Academy Awards, honoring the best in film in 2023.
In the Best Original Score category, the nominees are:
- JOSCELIN DENT-POOLEY (JERSKIN FENDRIX) for Poor Things
- LUDWIG GÖRANSSON for Oppenheimer
- LAURA KARPMAN for American Fiction
- ROBBIE ROBERTSON for Killers of the Flower Moon
- JOHN WILLIAMS for Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
These are the first Oscar nominations for Dent-Pooley, Karpman, and Robertson; Robertson’s nomination is posthumous, as he died in August 2023, just weeks before Killers of the Flower Moon was released. This is the third Oscar nomination – the second in this category – for Göransson, who previously won for Black Panther in 2018.
Incredibly, this is the 54th 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:
- JON BATISTE and DAN WILSON for “It Never Went Away” from American Symphony
- BILLIE EILISH and FINNEAS O’CONNELL for “What Was I Made For?” from Barbie
- SCOTT GEORGE for “Wahzhazhe – A Song for My People” from Killers of the Flower Moon
- MARK RONSON and ANDREW WYATT for “I’m Just Ken” from Barbie
- DIANE WARREN for “The Fire Inside” from Flamin’ Hot
The winners of the 96th Academy Awards will be announced on March 10, 2024.
Laurie Johnson, 1927-2024
Composer Laurie Johnson died on January 16, 2024, at home in London after a short illness. He was 95.
Laurence Reginald Ward Johnson was born in London in February 1927. He studied composition at the Royal College of Music, where one of his tutors was Ralph Vaughan Williams. He undertook his national service, playing French horn with the Coldstream Guards, in the late 1940s, before moving to the entertainment industry in the 1950s.
He began his career as a composer and arranger in the West End theater, and he won an Ivor Novello Award in 1959 for his work on Lionel Bart’s Lock Up Your Daughters in 1959. He scored his first film, the British musical The Good Companions, in 1957, and went on to enjoy a long career in the British film music industry, writing for projects such as the swashbuckler The Moonraker (1958), the crime drama Tiger Bay (1959), Stanley Kubrick’s classic satire Dr. Strangelove (1964), the HG Wells science-fiction adaptation First Men in the Moon (1964), the cult Hammer horror Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter (1972), the nature drama The Belstone Fox (1973), and the literary drama Hedda (1975), as well as a series of 1980s TV movies based on the works of his long-time friend, novelist Dame Barbara Cartland. Read more…
BAFTA Nominations 2023
The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) has announced the nominations for the 77th British Academy Film Awards, honoring the best in film in 2023.
In the Best Original Music category, which is named in memory of the film director Anthony Asquith, the nominees are:
- JOSCELIN DENT-POOLEY (JERSKIN FENDRIX) for Poor Things
- LUDWIG GÖRANSSON for Oppenheimer
- DANIEL PEMBERTON for Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
- ROBBIE ROBERTSON for Killers of the Flower Moon
- ANTHONY WILLIS for Saltburn
This is the second BAFTA nomination for Pemberton, and the second nomination for Willis. All the other three nominees are first time nominees – although Göransson does have an Oscar, a Golden Globe, three Grammys and two Emmys – meaning that whoever wins will be a first time BAFTA winner. Robertson’s nomination is posthumous; he died in August 2023, just weeks before Killers of the Flower Moon was released.
The winners of the 77th BAFTA Awards will be announced on 18 February, 2024.
Shop at the Movie Music UK Store
Member of the
MOVIE MUSIC UK 