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Movie Music UK Awards 2018
The world of film music in 2018 yielded some truly outstanding scores, but my top scores of the year actually came to me rather more easily than they usually do. They each spoke to different aspects of my musical personality, touching on my love of screen musicals, my love of powerful and rousing action, my love of deep emotional content, and my love of memorable themes. The year’s best score, for me, heralded the triumphant return to Hollywood of a 1990s great who has spent more time on Broadway than in Tinseltown, and if there is any justice at all he will be the world’s newest EGOT after the Oscars are announced.
Meanwhile, the world outside of the United States proved once again that brilliant film music can be found all over the globe if you are prepared to actively seek it out instead of simply settling for whatever the major studios foist upon us; my winners and nominees this year include scores from the UK, Mexico, Spain, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Iceland, Norway, Japan, China, and even Egypt. So, without further ado, here are my choices… Read more…
Michel Legrand, 1932-2019
Composer Michel Legrand died on January 26, 2019, in hospital in Paris, France, after a short illness related to a pulmonary infection. He was 86.
Michel Jean Legrand was born in Paris, France, in 1932, the son of composer-conductor Raymond Legrand and his wife, Marcelle Ter-Mikaëlian, who was the sister of conductor Jacques Hélian. Legrand studied music at the Conservatoire de Paris from age 11, working with Nadia Boulanger among others, and as both a composer and a pianist. He achieved early career success in 1954 age 22 when his original jazz album I Love Paris became a surprise hit in Europe. He released numerous more albums in the 1950s, including the popular Paris Jazz Piano in 1959, and then established himself as a jazz composer, pianist, and bandleader in the United States, working with jazz stars such as Miles Davis, Stan Getz, and Lena Horne.
Legrand dabbled in film music from the mid 1950s onwards, but achieved his first significant success in 1960 when he scored director Jean-Luc Godard’s groundbreaking A Woman Is a Woman (Une Femme Est Une Femme) in 1961. Legrand quickly became a key musical component of the French New Wave, working for Godard and other directors such as Jacques Demy and Agnès Varda, among others, on such classics as Lola (1961), Vivre Sa Vie (1962), Cléo de 5 à 7 (1962), La Baie des Anges (1963), Bande à Part (1964), and La Chinoise (1967). His score for Demy’s 1965 musical film The Umbrellas of Cherbourg earned him his first Academy Award nomination, and from that point on Legrand split his time between Hollywood and Europe, working on both big-budget American and films and more artistic French fare. Read more…
Academy Award Nominations 2018
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) have announced the nominations for the 91st Academy Awards, honoring the best in film in 2018.
In the Best Original Score category, the nominees are:
- TERENCE BLANCHARD for Blackkklansman
- NICHOLAS BRITELL for If Beale Street Could Talk
- ALEXANDRE DESPLAT for Isle of Dogs
- LUDWIG GÖRANSSON for Black Panther
- MARC SHAIMAN for Mary Poppins Returns
These are the first Oscar nominations for Blanchard and Göransson. This is the second nomination Britell (his first was Moonlight in 2016) and the fourth score nomination for Shaiman (his seventh overall, including nominations for Best Song) – although his last one came in 1999 for Patch Adams. Desplat has now been nominated ten times, and is the only former Oscar winner in the field, having won for The Grand Budapest Hotel in 2014, and for The Shape of Water last year in 2017.
In the Best Original Song category, the nominees are:
- STEFANI GERMANOTTA (LADY GAGA), MARK RONSON, ANTHONY ROSSOMANDO, and ANDREW WYATT for “Shallow” from A Star is Born
- KENDRICK LAMAR DUCKWORTH, MARK SPEARS (SOUNWAVE), ANTHONY TIFFITH, and SOLANA ROWE (SZA) for “All the Stars” from Black Panther
- DAVID RAWLINGS and GILLIAN WELCH for “When a Cowboy Trades His Spurs for Wings” from The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
- MARC SHAIMAN and SCOTT WITTMAN for “The Place Where Lost Things Go” from MARY POPPINS RETURNS
- DIANE WARREN for “I’ll Fight” from RGB
The winners of the 91st Academy Awards will be announced on February 24, 2018.
BAFTA Nominations 2018
The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) has announced the nominations for the 72nd British Academy Film Awards, honoring the best in film in 2018.
In the Best Original Music category, which is named in memory of the film director Anthony Asquith, the nominees are:
- TERENCE BLANCHARD for Blackkklansman
- NICHOLAS BRITELL for If Beale Street Could Talk
- BRADLEY COOPER, STEFANI GERMANOTTA (LADY GAGA), and LUKAS NELSON for A Star is Born
- ALEXANDRE DESPLAT for Isle of Dogs
- MARC SHAIMAN for Mary Poppins Returns
This is the ninth BAFTA nomination for Desplat, who won for “The King’s Speech” in 2010, “The Grand Budapest Hotel” in 2014, and for “The Shape of Water” in 2018; and the second nomination for Shaiman, who was previously nominated for “Sleepless in Seattle” in 1993. It is the first nomination for both Blanchard and Britell. Cooper, Nelson, and Lady Gaga are nominated for the numerous original songs they wrote for the latest screen version of A Star is Born.
The winners of the 72nd BAFTA Awards will be announced on February 20, 2019.
Golden Globe Winners 2018
The Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) have announced the winners of the 76th Golden Globe Awards, honoring the best in film and American television of 2018.
In the Best Original Score category composer Justin Hurwitz won the award for his score for director Damien Chazelle’s film First Man, which tells the life story of the first man on the moon Neil Armstrong. This is Hurwitz’s second Golden Globe, him having won previously for La La Land in 2016. In his acceptance speech, Hurwitz said:
“OK, alright. I have to thank Nick Baxter who mixed this score, and John Taylor who mixed this movie, because a theremin score could have ended up being very annoying, and they found the right place for everything to sit and showed that great mixers can make a composer look good. So, thanks to them. I want to thank Tom Cross who cut the film, and the whole editorial department – Harry Yoon, John To, Derek Drouin, Jennifer Stelemma, Jeff Harlacker, Jason Miller – I’m in awe of how you guys put together something so complex. Thank you of course to Damian [Chazelle], who is brilliant and loyal and touches every detail of our work. Thank you HFPA, thank you everybody at Universal, and the Los Angeles musicians.”
The other nominees were Marco Beltrami for A Quiet Place, Alexandre Desplat for Isle of Dogs, Ludwig Göransson for Black Panther, and Marc Shaiman for Mary Poppins Returns.
In the Best Original Song category, the winners were Stefani Germanotta (Lady Gaga), Mark Ronson, Anthony Rossomando, and Andrew Wyatt, for their song “Shallow” from the latest version of A Star Is Born.
The other nominees were Jón Þór Birgisson (Jónsi), Troye Sivan, and Brett McLaughlin for “Revelation” from Boy Erased; Kendrick Lamar Duckworth, Anthony Tiffith, Mark Spears (Sounwave), Solána Rowe (SZA), and Al Shuckburgh (Al Shux) for “All the Stars” from Black Panther; Annie Lennox for “Requiem for A Private War” from A Private War; and Dolly Parton and Linda Perry for “Girl in the Movies” from Dumplin’.
Golden Globe Nominations 2018
The Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) has announced the nominations for the 76th Golden Globe Awards, honoring the best in film and American television of 2018.
In the Best Original Score category, the nominees are:
- MARCO BELTRAMI for A Quiet Place
- ALEXANDRE DESPLAT for Isle of Dogs
- LUDWIG GÖRANSSON for Black Panther
- JUSTIN HURWITZ for First Man
- MARC SHAIMAN for Mary Poppins Returns
This is the first Golden Globe nomination for Beltrami, and the first major film music nomination of any kind for Göransson, although Göransson has been a multiple Grammy award nominee and winner for his work as a producer for Donald Glover and Childish Gambino.
This is the 2nd nomination for Hurwitz, who previously won the Globe for La La Land in 2016, the 2nd nomination for Shaiman, and the 10th nomination for Desplat, who previously won the Globe for The Painted Veil in 2006 and The Shape of Water in 2017.
In the Best Original Song category, the nominees are:
- JÓN ÞÓR BIRGISSON (JÓNSI), TROYE SIVAN, and BRETT McLAUGHLIN for “Revelation” from Boy Erased
- KENDRICK LAMAR DUCKWORTH, ANTHONY TIFFITH, MARK SPEARS (SOUNWAVE), SOLÁNA ROWE (SZA), and AL SHUCKBURGH (AL SHUX) for “All the Stars” from Black Panther
- STEFANI GERMANOTTA (LADY GAGA), MARK RONSON, ANTHONY ROSSOMANDO, and ANDREW WYATT for “Shallow” from A Star Is Born
- ANNIE LENNOX for “Requiem for A Private War” from A Private War
- DOLLY PARTON and LINDA PERRY for “Girl in the Movies” from Dumplin’
The winners of the 76th Golden Globe Awards will be announced on January 6, 2019.
Francis Lai, 1932-2018
Composer Francis Lai died on November 7, 2018, at home in Paris, France, after a short illness. He was 86.
Francis Albert Lai was born in Nice, France, in April 1932. He moved to Paris in his twenties and began composing songs while working with lyricist Bernard Dimey. He accompanied Édith Piaf and wrote songs for French singers such as Mireille Mathieu and Yves Montand before transitioning into film scoring in the mid-1960s. His breakthrough came in 1966 with Un Homme et Un Femme [A Man and a Woman], directed by Claude Lelouch. The film won the Palme d’Or at Cannes, and Lai’s score – particularly its vocal theme – became a major success. He would go on to score more than 30 of Lelouch’s films, notably .
Lai’s most widely recognized international work came in 1970 with Love Story, starring Ryan O’Neal and Ali MacGraw. Its theme became a chart-topping hit in both instrumental and vocal versions, and Lai received the Academy Award and a Golden Globe for the score. His other notable works include Mayerling (1968), Rider on the Rain (1970), Emmanuelle II (1975), Bilitis (1977), and International Velvet (1978). He also composed for television and collaborated with artists such as Carly Simon. Read more…
Stelvio Cipriani, 1937-2018
Composer Stelvio Cipriani died in Rome on October 1, 2018, at the age of 81, following a period of ill health after suffering an ischemia the previous year.
One of the most prolific composers working in Italian cinema during the 1970s, Cipriani wrote more than 200 film scores, encompassing westerns, thrillers, horror films, crime dramas, comedies and romances.
Cipriani was born in Rome on August 20, 1937. He studied piano and composition at the Conservatorio di Santa Cecilia and began his professional career accompanying popular singers, including Rita Pavone. He later spent time in the United States studying jazz before returning to Italy and entering the film industry during the mid-1960s.
His first feature score was for the 1966 western The Bounty Killer, followed by The Stranger Returns in 1967, starring Tony Anthony. The latter contained the sort of immediately memorable melody that would become a Cipriani trademark, and its main theme was subsequently recorded by Henry Mancini. Westerns provided some of his earliest opportunities, but Cipriani quickly expanded into almost every area of Italian genre cinema.
His greatest popular success came with director Enrico Maria Salerno’s romantic drama The Anonymous Venetian (Anonimo Veneziano) in 1970. Cipriani’s melancholy central melody, usually led by piano and strings, perfectly captured the film’s story of lost love and impending death against the decaying beauty of Venice. The score became enormously popular in its own right and earned Cipriani the Nastro d’Argento for Best Music, establishing him as one of Italy’s most sought-after film composers. Read more…
Patrick Williams, 1939-2018
Composer, arranger and conductor Patrick Williams died in Santa Monica, California, on July 25, 2018, at the age of 79, from complications of cancer.
One of the most versatile American screen composers of his generation, Williams scored nearly 50 feature films and an enormous body of television while maintaining a parallel career in jazz and concert music. He received an Academy Award nomination, won four Emmy Awards and two Grammys, and was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in music.
Patrick Moody Williams was born in Bonne Terre, Missouri, on April 23, 1939, and grew up in Connecticut. A trumpeter and enthusiastic jazz musician, he led his own band while still in school before studying history at Duke University, where he directed the Duke Ambassadors jazz ensemble. After graduating in 1961 he moved to New York, studied composition and conducting at Columbia University, and began working as an arranger and writer of advertising jingles.
Encouraged by Henry Mancini, Williams moved to Los Angeles in the late 1960s and quickly established himself in film and television. His early feature assignments included How Sweet It Is! (1968), followed during the 1970s by films such as Casey’s Shadow (1978), Richard Lester’s Butch and Sundance: The Early Days (1979) and Cuba (1979). His music drew naturally on jazz, big-band writing and the classical orchestral tradition, allowing him to move comfortably between comedy, romance and drama. Read more…
Arthur B. Rubinstein, 1938-2018
Composer Arthur B. Rubinstein died on April 23, 2018, in Los Angeles, after a short illness. He was 80.
Arthur Benjamin Rubinstein was born in Brooklyn, New York, in March 1938. He studied at the University of Hartford and the Juilliard School, and began his career in theater and concert music before moving into film and television.
Rubinstein’s subsequent career spanned over four decades. A frequent creative partner of director John Badham, Rubinstein’s propulsive electronic score for Blue Thunder (1983) and the suspenseful, thematically rich music for WarGames (1983) remain among his best-known works. His other acclaimed scores include titles such as Short Circuit (1986), Stakeout (1987), The Hard Way (1991), Another Stakeout (1993), and Nick of Time (1995).
He also wrote scores for numerous TV series, including episodes of Scarecrow and Mrs. King, the 1985 reboot of The Twilight Zone, Amazing Stories, Wiseguy, The Love Boat, Sledge Hammer, and even The Simpsons. He won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Achievement in Music Composition for a Series (Dramatic Underscore) for the episode “We’re Off to See the Wizard” from Scarecrow and Mrs. King in 1986. Read more…
Academy Award Winners 2017
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) have announced the winners of the 90th Academy Awards, honoring the best in film in 2017.
In the Best Original Score category composer Alexandre Desplat won the award for his score for director Guillermo del Toro’s romantic fantasy film The Shape of Water. In accepting his award, Desplat said:
Merci, c’est fantastique. I‘m very grateful to the Academy. My mother is also turning 90 this year so I think she’ll be very happy tonight! Yes, she’s Greek, by the way! Now, Guillermo, thank you, you know, thank you for the letting the music be the voice of your characters and convey the beautiful melancholy of love. That’s for you. I wish to thank Miles Dale, Fox Searchlight, and the music department at Fox. All the musicians who played on the score and those downstairs here, and I wish to thank queen Renee Fleming, Laura Engel, Ray Costa, my friend Katz, and Solrey you elevate my music, everything I write by your musical genius, thank you, but this is not for you, it’s for our daughters Ninou and Antonia. Thank you!
The other nominees were Carter Burwell for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri, Jonny Greenwood for Phantom Thread, John Williams for Star Wars: The Last Jedi, and Hans Zimmer for Dunkirk.
In the Best Original Song category, the winners were Kristin Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez their song “Remember Me” from Coco.
The other nominees were Mary J. Blige, Raphael Saadiq, and Taura Stinson for “Mighty River” from Mudbound; Benj Pasek and Justin Paul for “This Is Me” from The Greatest Showman; Sufjan Stevens for “Mystery of Love” from Call Me By Your Name; and Diane Warren and Lonnie Lynn Jr. (Common) for “Stand Up For Something” from Marshall.
IFMCA Award Winners 2017
INTERNATIONAL FILM MUSIC CRITICS ASSOCIATION ANNOUNCES WINNERS OF 2017 IFMCA AWARDS; “PHANTOM THREAD” TAKES SCORE OF THE YEAR, MULTIPLE WINS FOR MICHAEL GIACCHINO, BENJAMIN WALLFISCH
The International Film Music Critics Association (IFMCA) announces its list of winners for excellence in musical scoring in 2017, in the 2017 IFMCA Awards.
The award for Score of the Year goes to British composer Jonny Greenwood for his score for critically acclaimed period drama “Phantom Thread,” directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, and starring Daniel Day-Lewis. In describing the score, IFMCA member Jon Broxton wrote that it was a “quite masterful score from Greenwood, one which gets deeply under the skin of the damaged, potentially dangerous, but nevertheless mutually fulfilling relationship at the center of the story. The abstract, impressionistic, modernistic textures perfectly capture the torment that both characters at times feel, as well as their willful and often unpleasant personalities. Then, when he opens up his orchestra and performs the Phantom Thread theme with glorious melodrama, or when he writes elegant romantic music for what should be the dreadful finale, the whole thing simply soars”. The score was also named Best Original Score for Drama Film; these are the first IFMCA Award wins of Greenwood’s career, him having previously been nominated for Breakthrough Film Composer of the Year in 2007 and Best Original Score for an Action/Adventure/Thriller Film for “Inherent Vice” in 2014. Read more…
BAFTA Winners 2017
The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) have announced the winners of the 71st British Academy Film Awards, honoring the best in film in 2017.
In the Best Original Score category composer Alexandre Desplat won the award for his score for director Guillermo del Toro’s romantic fantasy film The Shape of Water. In accepting his award, Desplat said:
“Yes, what a venue for music! Thank you, it’s… it’s marvelous. Guillermo, your film is unique, and the poetry you’ve given us is amazing, and for music there’s always a good bonding between music and poetry, so thank you, thank you very much. Thanks to Fox Searchlight. This music was recorded here in London by the London Symphony Orchestra at Abbey Road [applause] Marvelous musicians! Many of them, one of them is here tonight, Solrey, the best musician I have ever met and… [applause] and, Antonia, my daughter. Hi, Antonia! And… I thank you. It’s marvelous. Thank you.”
The other nominees were Jonny Greenwood for Phantom Thread, Dario Marianelli for Darkest Hour, Benjamin Wallfisch and Hans Zimmer for Blade Runner 2049, and Hans Zimmer again for Dunkirk.
Jóhann Jóhannsson, 1969-2018
Composer Jóhann Jóhannsson died on February 9, 2018, at his home in Berlin, Germany, of an accidental drug overdose. He was 48 years old.
Jóhann Jóhannsson was born in Reykjavik, Iceland, in September 1969. After graduating from university he started his musical career in the mid-1990s as a guitarist playing in various Icelandic indie rock bands, before founding Kitchen Motors, an art organization that encouraged musical collaborations between artists from numerous different genres. He began scoring television projects and films in his native Iceland in 1999, beginning with the TV series Corpus Camera and the theatrical feature The Icelandic Dream [Íslenski Draumurinn] for director Robert Ingi Douglas, and went on to write several acclaimed scores for Icelandic directors over the next several years.
Jóhannsson scored his first English-language film, Personal Effects for director David Hollander, in 2009, first came to international prominence in 2013 when he was asked to score the dark thriller Prisoners starring Hugh Jackman and Jake Gyllenhaal by director Denis Villeneuve. He followed this with the score for the Steven Hawking bio-pic The Theory of Everything in 2014, for which he won the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score, and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Score, a BAFTA Award for Best Film Music, and a Grammy Award for Best Score Soundtrack for Visual Media. Read more…
IFMCA Award Nominations 2017
INTERNATIONAL FILM MUSIC CRITICS ASSOCIATION AWARD NOMINATIONS ANNOUNCED; MULTIPLE NOMINATIONS FOR ALEXANDRE DESPLAT, MICHAEL GIACCHINO, DANIEL PEMBERTON, JOHN WILLIAMS
FEBRUARY 8, 2018. The International Film Music Critics Association (IFMCA) announces its list of nominees for excellence in musical scoring in 2017, for the 14th annual IFMCA Awards. In a wide open field, the most nominated composers are Alexandre Desplat and Daniel Pemberton, who both received four nominations, Michael Giacchino, who received five nominations, and John Williams, who received six nominations for new work, plus an additional three for archival re-releases of some of his classic scores.
56-year old Frenchman Alexandre Desplat is nominated for his work on two scores – director Guillermo Del Toro’s critically acclaimed monster movie romance “The Shape of Water,” and director Luc Besson’s epic space fantasy “Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets” – and is one of the five nominees for Composer of the Year. IFMCA member James Southall said that “The Shape of Water” was “yet another from the top drawer of Desplat,” and went on to describe him as “one of the most consistently impressive film composers of the last couple of decades,” who has “managed to be so successful without having to water down his highly-distinctive musical voice at all”. Desplat previously received IFMCA Score of the Year honors in 2008 for “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”. His other major scores in 2017 include director George Clooney’s satirical racial drama ‘”Suburbicon,” and the French-language comedy-drama “D”Après Une Histoire Vraie,” directed by Roman Polanski. Read more…
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