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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.
Golden Globe Winners 2023
The Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) have announced the winners of the 81st Golden Globe Awards, honoring the best in film and American television of 2023.
In the Best Original Score category composer 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. This is the first Golden Globe for Göransson, in his fourth nomination – he was previously nominated for Best Score for Black Panther in 2019, and Tenet in 2021, and for Best Song for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever in 2022. In his acceptance speech, Göransson said:
“Thank you to the HFPA, and thank you to Chris Nolan and Emma Thomas for inviting me on this journey, and for creating this masterpiece. Working with Christopher Nolan has been an incredible experience and I think the way that you use music in your films and your storytelling has inspired a lot of people. I want to also thank Cillian Murphy, I have been watching your face over and over and over again [laughs] – it’s been an incredible experience and thank you for inspiring me. I want thank all the musicians that played on this incredible score… on this score, they made an incredible effort. And I also want to thank my partner in life and partner in music, Serena, for helping me to realize this music. I love you.”
The other nominees were Joscelin Dent-Pooley (Jerskin Fendrix) for Poor Things, Joe Hisaishi for The Boy and the Heron, Mica Levi for The Zone of Interest, Daniel Pemberton for Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, and Robbie Robertson for Killers of the Flower Moon
In the Best Original Song category, the winners were Billie Eilish and Finneas O’Connell for their song “What Was I Made For,” one of three nominees from the smash hit summer blockbuster Barbie.
The other nominees were Jack Black, Aaron Horvath, Michael Jelenic, Eric Osmond, and John Spiker for “Peaches” from The Super Mario Bros. Movie; Lenny Kravitz for “Road to Freedom” from Rustin; Mark Ronson and Andrew Wyatt for “I’m Just Ken” from Barbie; Mark Ronson, Andrew Wyatt, Dua Lipa, and Caroline Ailin for “Dance the Night” from Barbie; and Bruce Springsteen for “Addicted to Romance” from She Came to Me.
SCL Award Nominations 2023
The Society of Composers and Lyricists (SCL) has announced the nominations for 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 nominees are:
OUTSTANDING ORIGINAL SCORE FOR A STUDIO FILM
• LUDWIG GÖRANSSON for Oppenheimer
• JOE HISAISHI for The Boy and the Heron
• LAURA KARPMAN for American Fiction
• ROBBIE ROBERTSON for Killers of the Flower Moon
• ANTHONY WILLIS for Saltburn
OUTSTANDING ORIGINAL SCORE FOR AN INDEPENDENT FILM
• JON BATISTE for American Symphony
• MICA LEVI for The Zone of Interest
• FABRIZIO MANCINELLI and RICHARD M. SHERMAN for Mushka
• DANIEL PEMBERTON for Ferrari
• JOHN POWELL for Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie
Read more…
Golden Globe Nominations 2023
The Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) has announced the nominations for the 81st Golden Globe Awards, honoring the best in film and American television of 2023.
In the Best Original Score category, the nominees are:
- JOSCELIN DENT-POOLEY (JERSKIN FENDRIX) for Poor Things
- LUDWIG GÖRANSSON for Oppenheimer
- JOE HISAISHI for The Boy and the Heron
- MICA LEVI for The Zone of Interest
- DANIEL PEMBERTON for Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
- ROBBIE ROBERTSON for Killers of the Flower Moon
These are the first nominations for Dent-Pooley, Hisaishi, Levi, and Robertson; Robertson’s nomination is posthumous, as he died in August. It is the third nomination for Göransson, and the third nomination for Pemberton. None of the composers have ever won a Golden Globe before.
In the Best Original Song category, the nominees are:
- JACK BLACK, AARON HORVATH, MICHAEL JELENIC, ERIC OSMOND, and JOHN SPIKER for “Peaches” from The Super Mario Bros. Movie
- BILLIE EILISH O’CONNELL and FINNEAS O’CONNELL for “What Was I Made For?” from Barbie
- LENNY KRAVITZ for “Road to Freedom” from Rustin
- MARK RONSON and ANDREW WYATT for “I’m Just Ken” from Barbie
- MARK RONSON, ANDREW WYATT, DUA LIPA, and CAROLINE AILIN for “Dance the Night” from Barbie
- BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN for “Addicted to Romance” from She Came to Me
The winners of the 81st Golden Globe Awards will be announced on January 7, 2024.
Carl Davis, 1936-2023
Composer Carl Davis died on August 3, 2023, at his home in Oxfordshire, England, following a brain haemorrhage. He was 86.
Davis was born in Brooklyn, New York, in October 1936, and studied composition there and in Copenhagen. He was working with the New York City Opera and the Robert Shaw Chorale, and writing music for off-Broadway productions, prior to traveling to the United Kingdom in 1961 to attend the Edinburgh Festival. It was while in Edinburgh that Davis was offered a job composing music for the satirical comedy series That Was The Week That Was; Davis subsequently spent the rest of his working career predominantly in the UK.
Over the next 30 years or so, Davis wrote hundreds of scores for British film and television. On the big screen, his works included The Bofors Gun (1968), I, Monster (1971), Up Pompeii (1971), Man Friday (1975), The Sailor’s Return (1978), The French Lieutenant’s Woman (1981), Champions (1983), King David (1985), Scandal (1989), The Rainbow (1989), Frankenstein Unbound (1990), The Trial (1993), Widows’ Peak (1994), and Topsy-Turvy (1999), the latter of which saw him adapting music by Gilbert and Sullivan.
On the small screen, his works included The Naked Civil Servant (1975), Oppenheimer (1980), Winston Churchill: The Wilderness Years (1981), The Hound of the Baskervilles (1982), The Far Pavilions (1984), The Pickwick Papers (1985), Hotel du Lac (1986), Silas Marner (1986), Pride and Prejudice (1995), Anne Frank Remembered (1995), and Cranford (2008), as well as the groundbreaking documentary series The World at War (1973). He won the BAFTA Award for Film Music for The French Lieutenant’s Woman, and was nominated on six other occasions between 1981 and 2008. He also received two Emmy nominations, in 1972 and 1993, and a Grammy nomination in 1983, again for The French Lieutenant’s Woman. Read more…
Mark Thomas, 1956-2023
Composer Mark Thomas died on July 19, 2013, at his home in Wales, after a long illness. He was 67.
Thomas was born in Penclawdd, near Swansea, Wales, in April 1956. He attended Gowerton Grammar School, and studied music composition and orchestration at university, before starting his musical career as a professional violinist, working mostly as a session musician in London. He played on countless film soundtracks in the late 1970s and 1980s, working with composers including John Williams, Jerry Goldsmith, James Horner and John Barry, and was one of the violinists in the orchestra pit on the opening night of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s legendary musical The Phantom of the Opera in 1986.
Thomas began writing his own music for film in the early 1990s and quickly established himself as one of the most in-demand composers in the British film and television industry; Thomas took extra pride in writing music for Welsh cinema and television, and intentionally sought out Welsh-language projects. His most profile work included films such as Daisies in December (2005), Twin Town (1997), The Big Tease (1999), Dog Soldiers (2002), Agent Cody Banks 2: Destination London (2004), Shadows in the Sun (2005), and The Magic Roundabout (2005), while his TV work included writing for acclaimed mini-series such as Aristocrats (1999), and episodes of Shaun the Sheep, Doc Martin, Benidorm, and Dalziel and Pascoe. He was nominated for an Emmy in 2011 for his main title music for the TV series Episodes, and won a BAFTA Cymru Award in 1998 for his score for Twin Town.
Thomas leaves behind his wife, Luz Marie, and children Imogen, Rosana and Tristam.
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
- DAMIEN CHAZELLE and JUSTIN HURWITZ
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…
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