2012 - BEST MUSIC
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German-born composer Hans Zimmer is recognized as one of Hollywood's most innovative musical talents. He featured in the music video for The Buggles' single "Video Killed the Radio Star", which became a worldwide hit and helped usher in a new era of global entertainment as the first music video to be aired on MTV (August 1, 1981).
Hans Florian Zimmer was born in Frankfurt am Main, then in West Germany, the son of Brigitte (Weil) and Hans Joachim Zimmer. He entered the world of film music in London during a long collaboration with famed composer and mentor Stanley Myers, which included the film My Beautiful Laundrette (1985). He soon began work on several successful solo projects, including the critically acclaimed A World Apart, and during these years Zimmer pioneered the use of combining old and new musical technologies. Today, this work has earned him the reputation of being the father of integrating the electronic musical world with traditional orchestral arrangements.
A turning point in Zimmer's career came in 1988 when he was asked to score Rain Man for director Barry Levinson. The film went on to win the Oscar for Best Picture of the Year and earned Zimmer his first Academy Award Nomination for Best Original Score. The next year, Zimmer composed the score for another Best Picture Oscar recipient, Driving Miss Daisy (1989), starring Jessica Tandy, and Morgan Freeman.
Having already scored two Best Picture winners, in the early 1990s, Zimmer cemented his position as a preeminent talent with the award-winning score for The Lion King (1994). The soundtrack has sold over 15 million copies to date and earned him an Academy Award for Best Original Score, a Golden Globe, an American Music Award, a Tony, and two Grammy Awards. In total, Zimmer's work has been nominated for 7 Golden Globes, 7 Grammys and seven Oscars for Rain Man (1988), Gladiator (2000), The Lion King (1994), As Good as It Gets (1997), The The Preacher's Wife (1996), The Thin Red Line (1998), The Prince of Egypt (1998), and The Last Samurai (2003).
With his career in full swing, Zimmer was anxious to replicate the mentoring experience he had benefited from under Stanley Myers' guidance. With state-of-the-art technology and a supportive creative environment, Zimmer was able to offer film-scoring opportunities to young composers at his Santa Monica-based musical "think tank." This approach helped launch the careers of such notable composers as Mark Mancina, John Powell, Harry Gregson-Williams, Nick Glennie-Smith, and Klaus Badelt.
In 2000, Zimmer scored the music for Gladiator (2000), for which he received an Oscar nomination, in addition to Golden Globe and Broadcast Film Critics Awards for his epic score. It sold more than three million copies worldwide and spawned a second album Gladiator: More Music From The Motion Picture, released on the Universal Classics/Decca label. Zimmer's other scores that year included Mission: Impossible II (2000), The Road to El Dorado (2000), and An Everlasting Piece (2000), directed by Barry Levinson.
Some of his other impressive scores include Pearl Harbor (2001), The Ring (2002), four films directed by Ridley Scott; Matchstick Men (2003), Hannibal (2001), Black Hawk Down (2001), and Thelma & Louise (1991), Penny Marshall's Riding in Cars with Boys (2001), and A League of Their Own (1992), Tony Scott's True Romance (1993), Tears of the Sun (2003), Ron Howard's Backdraft (1991), Days of Thunder (1990), Smilla's Sense of Snow (1997), and the animated Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron (2002) for which he also co-wrote four of the songs with Bryan Adams, including the Golden Globe nominated Here I Am.
At the 27th annual Flanders International Film Festival, Zimmer performed live for the first time in concert with a 100-piece orchestra and a 100-voice choir. Choosing selections from his impressive body of work, Zimmer performed newly orchestrated concert versions of Gladiator, Mission: Impossible II (2000), Rain Man (1988), The Lion King (1994), and The Thin Red Line (1998). The concert was recorded by Decca and released as a concert album entitled "The Wings Of A Film: The Music Of Hans Zimmer."
In 2003, Zimmer completed his 100th film score for the film The Last Samurai, starring Tom Cruise, for which he received both a Golden Globe and a Broadcast Film Critics nomination. Zimmer then scored Nancy Meyers' comedy Something's Gotta Give (2003), the animated Dreamworks film, Shark Tale (2004) (featuring voices of Will Smith, Renée Zellweger, Robert De Niro, Jack Black, and Martin Scorsese), and Jim Brooks' Spanglish (2004) starring Adam Sandler and Téa Leoni (for which he also received a Golden Globe nomination). His 2005 projects include Paramount's The Weather Man (2005) starring Nicolas Cage, Dreamworks' Madagascar (2005), and the Warner Bros. summer release, Batman Begins (2005).
Zimmer's additional honors and awards include the prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award in Film Composition from the National Board of Review, and the Frederick Loewe Award in 2003 at the Palm Springs International Film Festival. He has also received ASCAP's Henry Mancini Award for Lifetime Achievement. Hans and his wife live in Los Angeles and he is the father of four children.- Music Department
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Reinhold Heil is a German-born, L.A.-based Golden Globe nominated film and television composer. Prior to Reinhold's career as a film composer, he was known throughout Europe for his monster synth chops. At 21, he became a fixture in the Berlin music scene as the keyboardist of a popular jazz funk fusion band, marrying jazz, rock, and electronica into a sound all his own. Soon after, Reinhold toured Europe as the keyboardist, co-producer, and co-writer of the legendary German punk band The Nina Hagen Band and later Spliff, one of Germany's most popular rock bands of the 1980s. Reinhold was also a prolific music producer. "99 Luftballoons," which he produced for Nena, went platinum, topping the charts worldwide and becoming one of the most successful non-English language songs in US history.
Reinhold's career as a film composer began in 1999 with the pioneering electronic score to Tom Tykwer's international art house sensation, "Run Lola Run." "Run Lola Run" was the first film to have a techno score that was not comprised of pre-existing music, but was scored directly to picture.
Experimentation and innovation are integral to Reinhold's creative process, as is a passionately hands-on approach to music production, mixing, and engineering. Reinhold is a multi-instrumentalist. He owns a vast collection of obscure musical instruments and vintage synths, which often find their way into his scores as organic and electronic custom sounds.
Reinhold's film and TV scores include "One Hour Photo," "Perfume: The Story of a Murderer," "The International," "Cloud Atlas," "Deadwood," "Berlin Station," "Helix," and "Deutschland 83." Despite the contemporary nature of Reinhold's sounds, his themes and melodies are employed to maximally support the story's narrative and the protagonists' emotional worlds. His distinctive musical signature is characterized by harmonic complexity, emotional resonance, unconventional chord progressions, and unique hybrid soundscapes.- Composer
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Johnny Klimek was born in 1962 in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. He is a composer and producer, known for Babylon Berlin (2017), Cloud Atlas (2012) and Deadwood: The Movie (2019).- Writer
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Director, writer, producer and composer Tom Tykwer was born in 1965 in Wuppertal, Germany. He showed an interest in film-making from childhood, making super 8 films from the age of 11. Among his first jobs was working at a local art-house cinema. Tykwer eventually relocated to Berlin, first working as a film projectionist and then becoming head of programming at the Moviemento Theater.
Tykwer's friend, the director Rosa von Praunheim, encouraged him to experiment with film-making and the result was the short Because (2001). Other short films followed, and in 1993 Tykwer made his first full length feature Deadly Maria (1993). Tykwer's international breakthrough came in 1998 with Run Lola Run (1998), which was a hit with both audiences and critics alike. The film garnered many awards and was the most successful German film of the year.
Subsequent projects include Heaven (2002), Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (2006), The International (2009) and the ambitious epic Cloud Atlas (2012).- Composer
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Dario Marianelli was born in Pisa and studied piano and composition in Florence and London. After a year as a postgraduate composer at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, he spent 3 years at the National Film and Television School, from which he graduated in 1997. Dario's film scores include 'Paddington 2' (2017), 'Darkest Hour' (2017), 'Kubo and the 'Two Strings' (2016) Everest (2015), 'The Boxtrolls' (2014), 'Anna Karenina' (2012), 'Jane Eyre' (2011), 'Salmon Fishing In The Yemen' (2011), 'Eat Pray Love' (2010), 'The Soloist' (2009), 'Agora' (2009), 'Atonement' (2007), 'V for Vendetta' (2006) and 'Pride and Prejudice' (2005). He has written orchestral music for the Queensland Symphony Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra and the Britten-Pears Orchestra, as well as vocal music for the BBC Singers, incidental music for the Royal Shakespeare Company, and several ballet scores. Dario won the Oscar, Golden Globe and Ivor Novello Award in the Best Original Score category for the award-winning Working Title film 'Atonement', for which he also won the World Soundtrack Award and was BAFTA nominated. He was also nominated for a Classical Brit Award in the Soundtrack Of The Year category for 'Atonement'. In 2006, Dario was nominated for an Oscar in the Best Original Score category for his music to Joe Wright's 'Pride & Prejudice'. This score won him the Classical Brit Award in the Soundtrack/ Musical Theatre Composer of The Year category and also earned him an Ivor Novello Award nomination. Dario's collaboration with Joe Wright on the film 'Anna Karenina' led to his nomination for an Academy Award, BAFTA and Golden Globe for Best Original Score, and in May 2013, he won the Ivor Novello Award for Best Original Film Score for 'Anna Karenina'. In 2014 Dario composed the score for Laika animation 'The Boxtrolls', which was nominated for an Ivor Novello Award. He has recently completed work on the score to his second Laika animation, 'Kubo and the Two Strings', for which he won an Ivor Novello Award, and also worked on his fifth film collaboration with director Asif Kapadia on live action feature 'Ali and Nino'.
During 2014 Dario's 'Voyager' Violin Concerto also had its world premiere in Brisbane, Australia, performed by the Queensland Symphony Orchestra as part of a spectacular event combining science, music, voice, and film titled 'Journey Through The Cosmos'. The piece was featured alongside a lecture given by Professor Brian Cox and has since gone on to be performed by the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Daniel Harding and featuring highly acclaimed violinist Jack Liebeck.
In 2017, Dario continued his working relationship with Joe Wright on 'Darkest Hour' and also scoring Paul King's 'Paddington 2'. Dario was commissioned by The Royal Opera House to compose their new ballet, 'The Unknown Soldier', which premiered in November 2018. He also worked with Travis Knight, composing the score for the latest film in the Transformers film series, 'Bumblebee.' Dario collaborated with Matteo Garrone to score the Italian feature film 'Pinocchio'. Most recently Dario composed the original score for 'A Boy Called Christmas', directed by Gil Kenan, which was released in late 2021.- Composer
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Johan Söderqvist was born on 11 February 1966 in Stockholm, Sweden. He is a composer, known for Let the Right One In (2008), Kon-Tiki (2012) and Department Q: The Keeper of Lost Causes (2013).- Composer
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Marc Streitenfeld was born in 1974 in Munich, Bavaria, West Germany. He is a composer, known for Prometheus (2012), Robin Hood (2010) and American Gangster (2007).- Composer
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Guy is an award-winning film composer whose outstanding body of work includes over 40 feature films, flagship television series and collaborations with multi-platinum selling artists.
Guy's recent and most notable works include That Good Night, starring John Hurt and Charles Dance; additional music with Hans Zimmer on Netflix The Crown; Anthropoid (nominated for best music in the 2017 Evening Standard Film Awards) directed by Sean Ellis and starring Jamie Dornan; Friedrich Moser's award-winning documentary feature A Good American (nominated for best film score at the 2017 Austrian Film Awards); Bear Grylls' sold out 2016 arena tour, Endeavour; and Academy Award winning Peter Fudakowski's film of Joseph Conrad's Secret Sharer.
In addition to The Crown, Guy's television scores include BBC's Planet Earth series Growing Up Wild and Nature's Miracle Orphans; the multi-award winning feature documentary Faberge: A Life Of Its Own; and History Channel's South Africa: A Miracle Rising. Guy also arranged and produced channel Four's multi-award winning We Are The Superhumans for the 2016 Paralympics and produced music for both seasons of the series True Justice for Voltage Pictures.
Guy has also achieved great success collaborating with artists and producers, producing and arranging music for the likes of Emeli Sande, Eliza Doolittle, Paloma Faith, Amy Winehouse, Tokio Myers, Petite Meller, Fiona Bevan, Mica Paris and Stephen Fretwell.- Composer
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Composer and conductor Alexandre Desplat, Oscar winner and seven-time Academy Award nominated, for his prolific filmography and his collaborations with Stephen Frears, Terrence Malick, Ang Lee, Kathryn Bigelow, Jacques Audiard, Wes Anderson, Roman Polanski, George Clooney or Matteo Garrone is one of the most worthy heirs of the French masters of film music.
Brought up in a cultural and musical mix thanks to his Greek mother and his French father who studied and got married in California, he grew up listening to French symphonists, Ravel or Debussy , world music and jazz.
He studied piano and trumpet before choosing the flute as the main instrument. As a free auditor in Claude Ballif's analysis class at the CNSM, he enriches his classical musical education by studying Brazilian and African music. He will record later with Carlinhos Brown or Ray Lema.
Passionate about film music, it's as much his musical sensitivity as his intimate approach to cinematographic language that will allow his privileged relationship with filmmakers. Inspired by the scores of Maurice Jarre, Bernard Herrmann, Nino Rota or Georges Delerue, it is after hearing the score of John Williams for Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977) that he decides to compose exclusively for the big screen.
During the recording of his first feature film he meets violinist Dominique Lemonnier. This is the beginning of an exceptional artistic exchange as she becomes her favorite soloist, artistic director and wife. With his strong sense of interpretation, his creative spirit and his singular violin playing, Solré inspired Alexandre's compositions, influencing his music in depth, initiating a new way of writing for the strings in the cinema.
Collaborator of Jacques Audiard since his first film, he creates for his works strong and singular compositions and he won in 2005 for The Beat That My Heart Skipped (2005) the Silver Bear of the Berlinale, and his first Caesar. He works in France with Philippe de Broca and Francis Girod but Girl with a Pearl Earring (2003) of Peter Webber, his 50th score for the film, he gets a first Golden Globe nomination and BAFTA and began his rise in Hollywood. Leading American career and European collaborations and remaining faithful to his directors, he composes among others Syriana (2005)'s scores of Stephen Gaghan, Birth (2004) of Jonathan Glazer, Coco Before Chanel (2009) by Anne Fontaine, Army of Crime (2009) by Robert Guédiguian, The Heir Apparent: Largo Winch (2008) by Jérôme Salle, Intimate Enemies (2007) or Hostage (2005) by Florent-Emilio Siri.
Prizes and collaborations with the greatest directors follow one another. In 2007, he received his first Oscar nomination for Stephen Frears's The Queen (2006) and won his first European Film Award. The same year, he won the Golden Globe, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award, and the World Soundtrack Award for John Curran's score The Painted Veil (2006), performed by pianist Láng Lang. He composed in 2008 for Lust, Caution (2007) by Ang Lee and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008) by David Fincher which will earn him a second Oscar nomination and a fourth Golden Globes and BAFTA nomination.
With his score for The Ghost Writer (2010) by Roman Polanski, he won in 2010 a second César and a second European Film Award. The same year he wrote the music of The Twilight Saga: New Moon (2009) by Chris Weitz, whose album was a platinum record, and Tom Hooper's The King's Speech (2010) for which he won the BAFTA, the Grammy Award, and was nominated for the fourth time at the Oscars and for the fifth time at the Golden Globes.
In 2010-2011 he wrote the music of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (2010) and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (2011) which became the third greatest success of all time. He composed in 2011 nine partitions, The Tree of Life (2011) of Terrence Malick, Carnage (2011) by Roman Polanski, Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009) by George Clooney , which earned him another Oscar nomination, The Well-Digger's Daughter (2011) by Daniel Auteuil and The Ides of March (2011) by George Clooney.
In 2012 he worked with Kathryn Bigelow for Zero Dark Thirty (2012), Matteo Garrone for Reality (2012), Gilles Bourdos for Renoir (2012), Jérôme Salle for Zulu (2013), George Clooney for Moonrise Kingdom (2012) and Jacques Audiard for Rust and Bone (2012) for which he won a third Cesar. For his score of Argo (2012) of Ben Affleck, Oscar for Best Picture, it is named for the sixth time BAFTA, and for the fifth time at the Golden Globes and the Oscars.
He signed in 2013 the partition The Monuments Men (2014) from George Clooney, Venus in Fur (2013) of Roman Polanski, and was appointed to the BAFTAs and the Oscars for Philomena (2013) of Stephen Frears.
In 2014 he composed the music Godzilla (2014) of Gareth Edwards, and receives exceptional fact, two Oscar nominations for The Imitation Game (2014) of Morten Tyldum and The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014) by George Clooney, for which he won a BAFTA, Grammy and Oscar.
Member of the jury of the Cannes Film Festival in 2012, he became in 2014 the first composer President of the jury of the Venice Film Festival. Crowning long years of collaboration, he directed the London Symphony Orchestra in December 2014 for a concert of his works at the Barbican Theater in London.
In 2018, Alexandre Desplat received a second Oscar, a Golden Globe and a BAFTA for The Shape of Water (2017) of Guillermo del Toro.- Composer
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Dan Romer is an award-winning composer, songwriter and music producer based in Los Angeles. Romer's scores include Station Eleven (HBO MAX), Pixar's latest feature, Luca (Disney+), four-time Oscar-nominated Beasts of the Southern Wild (Searchlight), Maniac (Netflix), The Good Doctor (ABC), Beasts of No Nation (Netflix), Atypical (Netflix), and Emmy award-winning series RAMY (Hulu). In 2018, Romer composed the music for Ubisoft's flagship video game "Far Cry 5." In addition to his scoring work, Dan produced several worldwide hit singles for numerous acclaimed artists including, A Great Big World and Christina Aguilera's Grammy winning "Say Something," and Shawn Mendes' "Treat You Better."- Director
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Born in New York City and raised in Sunnyside, Queens and then Westchester County, Benh Zeitlin began his career as a film-maker at the tender age of 6 years when he and a friend made a Batman movie. He continued making films as a child before attending Wesleyan University, where he majored in film. After graduation, Benh spent a summer in Prague working with a prominent animation artist. Returning to the U.S., he worked in a private school in Manhattan helping elementary students create short films.- Composer
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Living in North Spain, Angel Illarramendi is one of the most gifted European composers for movies, a Basque talent who is known as the "Spanish Delerue." His unique talent in creating melodies, and his high sensibility put him on the higher places of the Spanish industry. There are great scores for a wide variety of movies: from the drama of Yoyes (2000) (with ethnic Basque sounds) to the adventure sound of The Island of the Crab (2000) (high symphonic score). He did thrillers (Presence of Mind (1999) [El Celo]), comedies (¡Buen viaje, excelencia! (2003)) and animation (El rey de la granja (2002)). He has been working in South American movies as the highly acclaimed Son of the Bride (2001) and Avellaneda's Moon (2004). His name is attached to famous Spanish producer Elías Querejeta. The composer has been finalist for the Goya Awards of the Spanish Academy and won some CEC Awards. Actually, he is working on new movies as the high budget The Borgia (2006). Angel Illarramendi is a value destined to be on the top of the world of film music scoring. Full of humanity and a great humor, Angel Illarramendi attended to some film music conferences and seminars in Spain.- Composer
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Hanan Townshend is known for his poetic orchestral scoring and cinematic commercial scores. Townshend is a frequent collaborator with legendary director Terrence Malick, breaking into film with his piano arrangements for Palme d'Or winning film, The Tree of Life starring Brad Pitt and Jessica Chastain. After his work on this film, Townshend scored Malick's To the Wonder (2014), featuring Ben Affleck and Rachel McAdams, collaborating with additional music composer and acclaimed record producer, Daniel Lanois. Townshend then went on to score Malick's Knight of Cups (2015), starring Cate Blanchett, Natalie Portman, and Christian Bale, as well as his IMAX documentary Voyage of Time (2016).
He continues to collaborate with Malick, contributing original music and arrangements to upcoming projects. Other features he has scored include Carlo Hintermann's The Book of Vision (2020), the opening film for Venice Critics' Week starring Charles Dance, Oscar-nominated director Henry Alex Rubin's Semper Fi (2019), and Julio Quintana's breakout Netflix film, Blue Miracle (2021).
Townshend has also gained acclaim for his work in documentary film, including collaborations with Academy Award-winning director, Megan Mylan's film Simple As Water (2021), the Emmy-award winning docu-series Outcry (2020), the Emmy and Critics Choice award-winning Disgraced (2017) directed by Pat Kondelis, and Drew Xanthopolous' Tribeca competition documentary and Apple TV+ film Fathom (2021).
In the world of commercial music, Townshend scores commercials for brands such as Apple, Nike, Guinness, and Volvo, which have aired during high profile slots such as the Super Bowl, Apple Keynotes, and the Oscars. He frequently teams with three-time Academy award-winning cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki, scoring his ethereal work for brands such as Vanity Fair, Apple, and Kind.
Townshend's music is described as poetic, spiritual, and sensitive. He enjoys approaching film music from innovation, writing scores as languages of internal atmospheres. His collaborations with directors and producers are often translations of intangible emotive experiences that become part of the deeper exploration of character and subject storytelling. Townshend often pulls from the natural soundscape of his upbringing on a remote country farm overlooking the ocean, in which he was immersed as he studied music from the age of six.
Townshend is a New Zealand-born composer and pianist, graduating from the New Zealand School of Music at Victoria University, and also studying film scoring and pop music production at the University of Texas. He works on international projects from his studio in Austin, Texas.- Music Department
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Philippe Rombi was born on 3 April 1968 in Pau, Pyrénées-Atlantiques, France. He is a composer, known for In the House (2012), Joyeux Noel (2005) and Welcome to the Sticks (2008).- Composer
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Max Richter was born on 22 March 1966 in Hamelin, Lower Saxony, West Germany. He is a composer and actor, known for Arrival (2016), The Leftovers (2014) and Ad Astra (2019).- Music Department
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As one of the best known, awarded, and financially successful composers in US history, John Williams is as easy to recall as John Philip Sousa, Aaron Copland or Leonard Bernstein, illustrating why he is "America's composer" time and again. With a massive list of awards that includes over 52 Oscar nominations (five wins), twenty-odd Gold and Platinum Records, and a slew of Emmy (two wins), Golden Globe (three wins), Grammy (25 wins), National Board of Review (including a Career Achievement Award), Saturn (six wins), American Film Institute (including a Lifetime Achievement Award) and BAFTA (seven wins) citations, along with honorary doctorate degrees numbering in the teens, Williams is undoubtedly one of the most respected composers for Cinema. He's led countless national and international orchestras, most notably as the nineteenth conductor of the Boston Pops Orchestra from 1980-1993, helming three Pops tours of the US and Japan during his tenure. He currently serves as the Pop's Conductor Laureate. Also to his credit is a parallel career as an author of serious, and some not-so-serious, concert works - performed by the likes of Mstislav Rostropovich, André Previn, Itzhak Perlman, Yo-Yo Ma, Gil Shaham, Leonard Slatkin, James Ingram, Dale Clevenger, and Joshua Bell. Of particular interests are his Essay for Strings, a jazzy Prelude & Fugue, the multimedia presentation American Journey (aka The Unfinished Journey (1999)), a Sinfonietta for Winds, a song cycle featuring poems by Rita Dove, concerti for flute, violin, clarinet, trumpet, tuba, cello, bassoon and horn, fanfares for the 1984, 1988 and 1996 Summer Olympics, the 2002 Winter Olympics, and a song co-written with Alan Bergman and Marilyn Bergman for the Special Olympics! But such a list probably warrants a more detailed background...
Born in Flushing, New York on February 8, 1932, John Towner Williams discovered music almost immediately, due in no small measure to being the son of a percussionist for CBS Radio and the Raymond Scott Quintet. After moving to Los Angeles in 1948, the young pianist and leader of his own jazz band started experimenting with arranging tunes; at age 15, he determined he was going to become a concert pianist; at 19, he premiered his first original composition, a piano sonata.
He attended both UCLA and the Los Angeles City College, studying orchestration under MGM musical associate Robert Van Eps and being privately tutored by composer Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, until conducting for the first time during three years with the U.S. Air Force. His return to the states brought him to Julliard, where renowned piano pedagogue Madame Rosina Lhevinne helped Williams hone his performance skills. He played in jazz clubs to pay his way; still, she encouraged him to focus on composing. So it was back to L.A., with the future maestro ready to break into the Hollywood scene.
Williams found work with the Hollywood studios as a piano player, eventually accompanying such fare such as the TV series Peter Gunn (1958), South Pacific (1958), Some Like It Hot (1959), The Apartment (1960), and To Kill a Mockingbird (1962), as well as forming a surprising friendship with Bernard Herrmann. At age 24, "Johnny Williams" became a staff arranger at Columbia and then at 20th Century-Fox, orchestrating for Alfred Newman and Lionel Newman, Dimitri Tiomkin, Franz Waxman, and other Golden Age notables. In the field of popular music, he performed and arranged for the likes of Vic Damone, Doris Day, and Mahalia Jackson... all while courting actress/singer Barbara Ruick, who became his wife until her death in 1974. John & Barbara had three children; their daughter is now a doctor, and their two sons, Joseph Williams and Mark Towner Williams, are rock musicians.
The orchestrating gigs led to serious composing jobs for television, notably Alcoa Premiere (1961), Checkmate (1960), Gilligan's Island (1964), Lost in Space (1965), Land of the Giants (1968), and his Emmy-winning scores for Heidi (1968) and Jane Eyre (1970). Daddy-O (1958) and Because They're Young (1960) brought his original music to the big theatres, but he was soon typecast doing comedies. His efforts in the genre helped guarantee his work on William Wyler's How to Steal a Million (1966), however, a major picture that immediately led to larger projects. Of course, his arrangements continued to garner attention, and he won his first Oscar for adapting Fiddler on the Roof (1971).
During the '70s, he was King of Disaster Scores with The Poseidon Adventure (1972), Earthquake (1974) and The Towering Inferno (1974). His psychological score for Images (1972) remains one of the most innovative works in soundtrack history. But his Americana - particularly The Reivers (1969) - is what caught the ear of director Steven Spielberg, then preparing for his first feature, The Sugarland Express (1974). When Spielberg reunited with Williams on Jaws (1975), they established themselves as a blockbuster team, the composer gained his first Academy Award for Original Score, and Spielberg promptly recommended Williams to a friend, George Lucas. In 1977, John Williams re-popularized the epic cinema sound of Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Franz Waxman and other composers from the Hollywood Golden Age: Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977) became the best selling score-only soundtrack of all time, and spawned countless musical imitators. For the next five years, though the music in Hollywood changed, John Williams wrote big, brassy scores for big, brassy films - The Fury (1978), Superman (1978), 1941 (1979), Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) ... An experiment during this period, Heartbeeps (1981), flopped. There was a long-term change of pace, nonetheless, as Williams fell in love with an interior designer and married once more.
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982) brought about his third Oscar, and The River (1984), Empire of the Sun (1987), The Accidental Tourist (1988) and Born on the Fourth of July (1989) added variety to the 1980s, as he returned to television with work on Amazing Stories (1985) and themes for NBC, including NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt (1970). The '80s also brought the only exceptions to the composer's collaboration with Steven Spielberg - others scored both Spielberg's segment of Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983) and The Color Purple (1985).
Intending to retire, the composer's output became sporadic during the 1990s, particularly after the exciting Jurassic Park (1993) and the masterful, Oscar-winning Schindler's List (1993). This lighter workload, coupled with a number of hilarious references on The Simpsons (1989) actually seemed to renew interest in his music. Two Home Alone films (1990, 1992), JFK (1991), Nixon (1995), Sleepers (1996), Seven Years in Tibet (1997), Saving Private Ryan (1998), Angela's Ashes (1999), and a return to familiar territory with Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999) recalled his creative diversity of the '70s.
In this millennium, the artist shows no interest in slowing down. His relationships with Spielberg and Lucas continue in A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001), the remaining Star Wars prequels (2002, 2005), Minority Report (2002), Catch Me If You Can (2002), and a promised fourth Indiana Jones film. There is a more focused effort on concert works, as well, including a theme for the new Walt Disney Concert Hall and a rumored light opera. But one certain highlight is his musical magic for the world of Harry Potter (2001, 2002, 2004, etc.), which he also arranged into a concert suite geared toward teaching children about the symphony orchestra. His music remains on the whistling lips of people around the globe, in the concert halls, on the promenades, in album collections, sports arenas, and parades, and, this writer hopes, touching some place in ourselves. So keep those ears ready wherever you go, 'cause you will likely hear a bit of John Williams on your way.- Composer
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In his ongoing, decades-long career as a composer, Alan Silvestri has blazed an innovative trail with his exciting and melodic scores, winning the applause of Hollywood and movie audiences the world over. With a credit list of over 100 films Silvestri has composed some of the most recognizable and beloved themes in movie history. His efforts have been recognized with two Oscar nominations, two Golden Globe nominations, three Grammy awards, two Emmy awards, and numerous International Film Music Critics Awards, Saturn Awards, and Hollywood Music In Media Awards.
Born in New York City and raised in Teaneck, New Jersey, Silvestri first dreamed of becoming a jazz guitar player. After spending two years at the Berklee School of Music in Boston, he hit the road as a performer and arranger. Landing in Hollywood at the age of 22, he found himself successfully composing the music for 1972's "The Doberman Gang" which established his place in the world of film composing.
The 1970s witnessed the rise of energetic synth-pop scores, establishing Silvestri as the action rhythmatist for TV's highway patrol hit "CHiPs." This action driven score caught the ear of a young filmmaker named Robert Zemeckis, whose hit film, 1984's "Romancing the Stone," was the perfect first date for the composer and director. It's success became the basis of a decades long collaboration that continues to this day. Their numerous collaborations have taken them through fascinating landscapes and stylistic variations, from the "Back to the Future" trilogy to the jazzy world of Toontown in "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" the tension filled rooms of "What Lies Beneath" and "Death Becomes Her", to the cosmic wonder of "Contact;" the emotional isolation of "Castaway", to the magic of the "Polar Express". But perhaps no film collaboration defines their creative relationship better than Zemeckis' 1994 Best Picture winner, "Forrest Gump", for which Silvestri's gift for melodically beautiful themes earned him an Oscar and Golden Globe nomination and the affection of film music lovers everywhere. This 35 year, 21 film collaboration includes such recent films as "Flight", "Allied" and most recently "Welcome To Marwen". Zemeckis and Silvestri are currently working on "The Witches" based on Roald Dahl's 1973 classic book scheduled for release in October of 2020.
Though the Zemeckis/Silvestri collaboration is legendary, Silvestri has scored films of every imaginable style and genre. His energy has brought excitement and emotion to the hard-hitting orchestral scores for Steven Spielberg's "Ready Player One", James Cameron's "The Abyss" as well as "Predator" and "The Mummy Returns." Alan's diversity is on full display in family entertainment films such as "The Father of the Bride 1 and 2", "Parent Trap", "Stuart Little 1 and 2", Disney's "Lilo and Stitch", "The Croods" as well as "Night at the Museum 1, 2 and 3" while his passion for melody fuels the romantic emotion of films like "The Bodyguard" and "What Women Want".
Most recently, Alan has composed the music for Marvel's "Avengers: Endgame." The film is the culmination of a partnership with Marvel that began in 2011 with Alan's dynamically heroic score for "Captain America: The First Avenger" followed by "Avengers". Since 2011 Alan's collaboration with Marvel helped propel "The Avengers" and "Avengers: Infinity War" to spectacular world-wide success.
Silvestri's success has also crossed into the world of songwriting. His partnership with Six-Time Grammy Award winner Glen Ballard has produced hits such as the Grammy-winning and Oscar-nominated song "Believe" (Josh Groban) for "The Polar Express", "Butterfly Fly Away" (Miley Cyrus) for "Hannah Montana The Movie", "God Bless Us Everyone" (Andrea Bocelli) for "A Christmas Carol" and "A Hero Comes Home" (Idina Menzel) for "Beowulf".
Alan and his wife Sandra are long time residents of California's central coast. In 1998 the Silvestri family embarked on a new venture as the founders of Silvestri Vineyards. Their wines show that lovingly cultivated fruit has a music all its own. "There's something about the elemental side of winemaking that appeals to me," he says. "Both music making and wine making involve a magical blending of art and science. Just as each note brings it own voice to the melody, each vine brings it's own unique personality to the wine."
Their other great passion is the ongoing search for the cure to Type 1 Juvenile Diabetes. With the diagnosis of their son at two years of age (now 29) they continue to work the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation and dream of the day this disease (and all of the suffering it brings to so many) will finally become a thing of the past.- Composer
- Music Department
- Actor
Composer and conductor Alexandre Desplat, Oscar winner and seven-time Academy Award nominated, for his prolific filmography and his collaborations with Stephen Frears, Terrence Malick, Ang Lee, Kathryn Bigelow, Jacques Audiard, Wes Anderson, Roman Polanski, George Clooney or Matteo Garrone is one of the most worthy heirs of the French masters of film music.
Brought up in a cultural and musical mix thanks to his Greek mother and his French father who studied and got married in California, he grew up listening to French symphonists, Ravel or Debussy , world music and jazz.
He studied piano and trumpet before choosing the flute as the main instrument. As a free auditor in Claude Ballif's analysis class at the CNSM, he enriches his classical musical education by studying Brazilian and African music. He will record later with Carlinhos Brown or Ray Lema.
Passionate about film music, it's as much his musical sensitivity as his intimate approach to cinematographic language that will allow his privileged relationship with filmmakers. Inspired by the scores of Maurice Jarre, Bernard Herrmann, Nino Rota or Georges Delerue, it is after hearing the score of John Williams for Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977) that he decides to compose exclusively for the big screen.
During the recording of his first feature film he meets violinist Dominique Lemonnier. This is the beginning of an exceptional artistic exchange as she becomes her favorite soloist, artistic director and wife. With his strong sense of interpretation, his creative spirit and his singular violin playing, Solré inspired Alexandre's compositions, influencing his music in depth, initiating a new way of writing for the strings in the cinema.
Collaborator of Jacques Audiard since his first film, he creates for his works strong and singular compositions and he won in 2005 for The Beat That My Heart Skipped (2005) the Silver Bear of the Berlinale, and his first Caesar. He works in France with Philippe de Broca and Francis Girod but Girl with a Pearl Earring (2003) of Peter Webber, his 50th score for the film, he gets a first Golden Globe nomination and BAFTA and began his rise in Hollywood. Leading American career and European collaborations and remaining faithful to his directors, he composes among others Syriana (2005)'s scores of Stephen Gaghan, Birth (2004) of Jonathan Glazer, Coco Before Chanel (2009) by Anne Fontaine, Army of Crime (2009) by Robert Guédiguian, The Heir Apparent: Largo Winch (2008) by Jérôme Salle, Intimate Enemies (2007) or Hostage (2005) by Florent-Emilio Siri.
Prizes and collaborations with the greatest directors follow one another. In 2007, he received his first Oscar nomination for Stephen Frears's The Queen (2006) and won his first European Film Award. The same year, he won the Golden Globe, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award, and the World Soundtrack Award for John Curran's score The Painted Veil (2006), performed by pianist Láng Lang. He composed in 2008 for Lust, Caution (2007) by Ang Lee and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008) by David Fincher which will earn him a second Oscar nomination and a fourth Golden Globes and BAFTA nomination.
With his score for The Ghost Writer (2010) by Roman Polanski, he won in 2010 a second César and a second European Film Award. The same year he wrote the music of The Twilight Saga: New Moon (2009) by Chris Weitz, whose album was a platinum record, and Tom Hooper's The King's Speech (2010) for which he won the BAFTA, the Grammy Award, and was nominated for the fourth time at the Oscars and for the fifth time at the Golden Globes.
In 2010-2011 he wrote the music of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (2010) and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (2011) which became the third greatest success of all time. He composed in 2011 nine partitions, The Tree of Life (2011) of Terrence Malick, Carnage (2011) by Roman Polanski, Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009) by George Clooney , which earned him another Oscar nomination, The Well-Digger's Daughter (2011) by Daniel Auteuil and The Ides of March (2011) by George Clooney.
In 2012 he worked with Kathryn Bigelow for Zero Dark Thirty (2012), Matteo Garrone for Reality (2012), Gilles Bourdos for Renoir (2012), Jérôme Salle for Zulu (2013), George Clooney for Moonrise Kingdom (2012) and Jacques Audiard for Rust and Bone (2012) for which he won a third Cesar. For his score of Argo (2012) of Ben Affleck, Oscar for Best Picture, it is named for the sixth time BAFTA, and for the fifth time at the Golden Globes and the Oscars.
He signed in 2013 the partition The Monuments Men (2014) from George Clooney, Venus in Fur (2013) of Roman Polanski, and was appointed to the BAFTAs and the Oscars for Philomena (2013) of Stephen Frears.
In 2014 he composed the music Godzilla (2014) of Gareth Edwards, and receives exceptional fact, two Oscar nominations for The Imitation Game (2014) of Morten Tyldum and The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014) by George Clooney, for which he won a BAFTA, Grammy and Oscar.
Member of the jury of the Cannes Film Festival in 2012, he became in 2014 the first composer President of the jury of the Venice Film Festival. Crowning long years of collaboration, he directed the London Symphony Orchestra in December 2014 for a concert of his works at the Barbican Theater in London.
In 2018, Alexandre Desplat received a second Oscar, a Golden Globe and a BAFTA for The Shape of Water (2017) of Guillermo del Toro.- Composer
- Music Department
- Soundtrack
Fernando Velázquez (Getxo, 1976) is a composer of music for film, television and theatre, a creator of concerto music, a cellist and an orchestra conductor.
The soundtrack genre has allowed him to bring symphonic music to mass audiences and, above all, to explore very different expressive and narrative possibilities, from fantasy films to drama and comedy.
He has composed award-winning and memorable soundtracks for films including all those by J.A. Bayona, such as El orfanato (The Orphanage), The Impossible and Un monstruo viene a verme (A Monster Calls), the latter of which was awarded the Goya for Best Original Score in 2017. He also composed the music for some of the highest-grossing films in Spanish cinema's history, such as Ocho apellidos vascos (Spanish Affair), Los ojos de Julia (Julia's Eyes), El silencio de la ciudad blanca (The Silence of the White City), Contratiempo (The Invisible Guest) and series such as Patria, El inocente (The Innocent) and the upcoming Alma, among others. His Hollywood experience includes films such as Guillermo del Toro's The Scarlet Summit and M. Night Shyamalan's The Evil Trap. He was asked by Wim Wenders to score his 2017 film Submergence. He has also enjoyed a significant and award-winning career as a classical musician and composer. Among his more than 250 symphonic compositions, the record release of 'Viento' is a particular highlight. It is also worth mentioning Humanity at Music, a cantata translated into several languages which has become the international anthem of cooperativism. It is part of an inter-cooperative artistic project bringing together artistic disciplines such as music, storytelling, singing, illustration, theatre and dance. Also of note is Concierto para trombón y orquesta (Concerto for Trombone and Orchestra), recorded by Ximo Vicedo and Euskadiko Orkestra in 2020. As a conductor, he has led London's Philharmonia, the London Metropolitan, the Czech National Orchestra, the Budapest Radio Orchestra, and the symphony orchestras of RTVE, Bilbao, Euskadi, Extremadura, Galicia, Comunidad de Madrid, Navarra, Murcia, Principado de Asturias and Seville, among others. As an arranger, he has worked on orchestral arrangements of pieces by other composers, such as a version of the famous Cántico espiritual by Amancio Prada, based on the poems of San Juan de la Cruz, or his collaboration on Jorge Drexler's latest album, Tinta y tiempo, among many others.- Composer
- Music Department
- Actor
Composer and conductor Alexandre Desplat, Oscar winner and seven-time Academy Award nominated, for his prolific filmography and his collaborations with Stephen Frears, Terrence Malick, Ang Lee, Kathryn Bigelow, Jacques Audiard, Wes Anderson, Roman Polanski, George Clooney or Matteo Garrone is one of the most worthy heirs of the French masters of film music.
Brought up in a cultural and musical mix thanks to his Greek mother and his French father who studied and got married in California, he grew up listening to French symphonists, Ravel or Debussy , world music and jazz.
He studied piano and trumpet before choosing the flute as the main instrument. As a free auditor in Claude Ballif's analysis class at the CNSM, he enriches his classical musical education by studying Brazilian and African music. He will record later with Carlinhos Brown or Ray Lema.
Passionate about film music, it's as much his musical sensitivity as his intimate approach to cinematographic language that will allow his privileged relationship with filmmakers. Inspired by the scores of Maurice Jarre, Bernard Herrmann, Nino Rota or Georges Delerue, it is after hearing the score of John Williams for Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977) that he decides to compose exclusively for the big screen.
During the recording of his first feature film he meets violinist Dominique Lemonnier. This is the beginning of an exceptional artistic exchange as she becomes her favorite soloist, artistic director and wife. With his strong sense of interpretation, his creative spirit and his singular violin playing, Solré inspired Alexandre's compositions, influencing his music in depth, initiating a new way of writing for the strings in the cinema.
Collaborator of Jacques Audiard since his first film, he creates for his works strong and singular compositions and he won in 2005 for The Beat That My Heart Skipped (2005) the Silver Bear of the Berlinale, and his first Caesar. He works in France with Philippe de Broca and Francis Girod but Girl with a Pearl Earring (2003) of Peter Webber, his 50th score for the film, he gets a first Golden Globe nomination and BAFTA and began his rise in Hollywood. Leading American career and European collaborations and remaining faithful to his directors, he composes among others Syriana (2005)'s scores of Stephen Gaghan, Birth (2004) of Jonathan Glazer, Coco Before Chanel (2009) by Anne Fontaine, Army of Crime (2009) by Robert Guédiguian, The Heir Apparent: Largo Winch (2008) by Jérôme Salle, Intimate Enemies (2007) or Hostage (2005) by Florent-Emilio Siri.
Prizes and collaborations with the greatest directors follow one another. In 2007, he received his first Oscar nomination for Stephen Frears's The Queen (2006) and won his first European Film Award. The same year, he won the Golden Globe, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award, and the World Soundtrack Award for John Curran's score The Painted Veil (2006), performed by pianist Láng Lang. He composed in 2008 for Lust, Caution (2007) by Ang Lee and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008) by David Fincher which will earn him a second Oscar nomination and a fourth Golden Globes and BAFTA nomination.
With his score for The Ghost Writer (2010) by Roman Polanski, he won in 2010 a second César and a second European Film Award. The same year he wrote the music of The Twilight Saga: New Moon (2009) by Chris Weitz, whose album was a platinum record, and Tom Hooper's The King's Speech (2010) for which he won the BAFTA, the Grammy Award, and was nominated for the fourth time at the Oscars and for the fifth time at the Golden Globes.
In 2010-2011 he wrote the music of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (2010) and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (2011) which became the third greatest success of all time. He composed in 2011 nine partitions, The Tree of Life (2011) of Terrence Malick, Carnage (2011) by Roman Polanski, Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009) by George Clooney , which earned him another Oscar nomination, The Well-Digger's Daughter (2011) by Daniel Auteuil and The Ides of March (2011) by George Clooney.
In 2012 he worked with Kathryn Bigelow for Zero Dark Thirty (2012), Matteo Garrone for Reality (2012), Gilles Bourdos for Renoir (2012), Jérôme Salle for Zulu (2013), George Clooney for Moonrise Kingdom (2012) and Jacques Audiard for Rust and Bone (2012) for which he won a third Cesar. For his score of Argo (2012) of Ben Affleck, Oscar for Best Picture, it is named for the sixth time BAFTA, and for the fifth time at the Golden Globes and the Oscars.
He signed in 2013 the partition The Monuments Men (2014) from George Clooney, Venus in Fur (2013) of Roman Polanski, and was appointed to the BAFTAs and the Oscars for Philomena (2013) of Stephen Frears.
In 2014 he composed the music Godzilla (2014) of Gareth Edwards, and receives exceptional fact, two Oscar nominations for The Imitation Game (2014) of Morten Tyldum and The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014) by George Clooney, for which he won a BAFTA, Grammy and Oscar.
Member of the jury of the Cannes Film Festival in 2012, he became in 2014 the first composer President of the jury of the Venice Film Festival. Crowning long years of collaboration, he directed the London Symphony Orchestra in December 2014 for a concert of his works at the Barbican Theater in London.
In 2018, Alexandre Desplat received a second Oscar, a Golden Globe and a BAFTA for The Shape of Water (2017) of Guillermo del Toro.- Composer
- Music Department
- Soundtrack
Amine Bouhafa was born on July 10, 1986. He is known for his work on "Timbuktu", "Dégage", "My way" and "The first Lady".
Amine started playing piano at the age of 3. He continued his musical studies in Tunis Conservatory then in Paris Conservatory from whish he is graduated in orchestration, classical harmony and composition. Amine won the Frensh César for his score for Timbuktu becoming one of the youngest Césars' awarded composers.- Music Department
- Composer
- Soundtrack
Thomas Newman is an American film score composer. He was born in Los Angeles. His father was notable film score composer Alfred Newman (1900-1970). The Newman family is of Russian-Jewish descent, and includes several other well-known musicians. Thomas' mother Martha Louis Montgomery (1920-2005) wanted her sons to have a musical education. Thomas attended regular lessons in violin as a child. An older Thomas received his musical education while attending the University of Southern California and Yale University. Thomas Newman graduated as Bachelor of Arts in 1977, and a Master of Music in 1978.
Thomas originally composed music for theatrical productions in Broadway, working with his mentor Stephen Sondheim. His uncle Lionel Newman asked him to compose music for the television series "The Paper Chase" (1978-1979, 1986), which was Thomas' first credit in a television production.
In the 1980s, Thomas first worked in film. Composer John Williams, a close family friend, hired Thomas to work in the music department for space opera film "Return of the Jedi" (1983). Thomas' main work in the film was orchestrating the music in a scene where character Darth Vader dies. Afterwards, Thomas was approached by film producer Scott Rudin and hired to work as a film score composer in his own right. His first work in the field was the film score of romantic drama "Reckless" (1984).
While he worked regularly as a film score composer during the 1980s, Thomas reportedly felt he had to retrain himself for a hard and demanding job. It reportedly took him 8 years to not feel fraudulent in his efforts. In 1994, Thomas received his first Academy Award nominations, for the film scores of "The Shawshank Redemption" (1994) and "Little Women" (1994). He lost the Award to rival composer Hans Zimmer, who had been nominated for the film score of the animated film "The Lion King" (1994).
Newman was an established and increasingly famous composer in the 1990s. He received further Academy Award nominations, although he never actually won. Among his more notable works was the film score of the drama film "American Beauty" (1999), which earned Thomas both a Grammy and a BAFTA award. Newman had a good working relationship with the film's director Sam Mendes. Mendes has kept hiring Thomas as the composer for most of his films. The main exception being the comedy-drama film "Away We Go" (2009), which did not have a film score.
In the 2000s, Thomas continued working in high-profile films, such as "Road to Perdition" (2002), "Finding Nemo" (2003), and "Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events". By 2006, he had been nominated eight times for an Academy Award, while never winning it. He started joking about his lack of victories in public.
In 2008, Thomas was nominated for two Academy Awards, for both the film score and an original song for the animated film "WALL-E" (2008). He won neither, though the hit song "Down to Earth" earned him a Grammy Award. He continues to work regularly in the 2010s. Among his more acclaimed works were the film scores for spy film "Skyfall" (2012) and period drama "Saving Mr. Banks" (2013). He has continued being nominated for Academy Awards. As of 2020, he has been nominated 15 times for the Academy Award. He is the most nominated living composer to have never actually won an Academy Award, tied with Alex North. He has won a total of 5 Grammy awards.- Composer
- Music Department
- Producer
Three-time Academy Award-nominated composer and pianist Nicholas Britell is known for his critically acclaimed scores on feature films with Academy Award winning writer-directors Barry Jenkins and Adam McKay. In 2018, Britell wrote the highly acclaimed score for Barry Jenkins' If Beale Street Could Talk. Britell received his second Academy Award nomination as well as BAFTA and Critics' Choice nominations for the score and was awarded Best Original Score by numerous critics' groups, including LA, Boston, Chicago, and Washington DC Film Critics Associations, New York Film Critics Online, and the Online Film Critics Association. In 2018, he also wrote the score for McKay's Vice, starring Christian Bale, which went on to receive eight Academy Award nominations including Best Picture. Britell's most recent film work is the score for Netflix's The King, starring Timothée Chalamet. In 2019, Britell was honored by the World Soundtrack Awards as the Film Composer of the Year for his scores for If Beale Street Could Talk and Vice.
In 2016, Britell was responsible for the world-renowned score for Best Picture winner Moonlight, written and directed by Jenkins. Britell received his first Academy Award, Golden Globe, and Critics' Choice nominations for Moonlight as well as the 2016 Hollywood Music in Media Award for Best Original Score (Dramatic Feature). The year prior, he wrote the score for McKay's much-nominated The Big Short, based on Michael Lewis's best-selling book.
For television, Britell re-teamed with McKay for the HBO series Succession. McKay directed the pilot and executive produces along with writer-showrunner Jesse Armstrong. Britell won an Emmy for Outstanding Original Main Title Theme as well as the 2018 Hollywood Music in Media Award for Best Original Score (TV Show/Limited Series) for Succession Season 1. Britell's score and main title theme have become some of the most talked about music for television on social media, with audience demand leading Britell to produce a remix of the main title theme with lyrics from legendary hip-hop artist Pusha-T (their remix ''Puppets" was released in October 2019 by Def Jam Recordings).
Britell's upcoming projects include writing the score for Amazon's Underground Railroad series, directed and adapted by Barry Jenkins from Colson Whitehead's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. He is also composing the score for Succession's upcoming Season 3 on HBO.
Britell's music featured in Steve McQueen's Best Picture winning 12 Years A Slave, for which he composed, researched, and arranged the on-camera music, including the violin performances, spiritual songs, work songs, and dances. He went on to work with McQueen on McQueen's art installation Caribs' Leap, which featured as part of the "Master of Light - Robby Müller" retrospective at the Eye film museum in Amsterdam. Other original film score credits include Valerie Faris and Jonathan Dayton's Battle of the Sexes, for which he also wrote and produced original song, "If I Dare" with singer Sara Bareilles; Natalie Portman's A Tale of Love and Darkness; Adam Leon's Gimme the Loot (winner of the 2012 SXSW Grand Jury Prize); Leon's Tramps; Gary Ross' Free State of Jones, and Jack Pettibone Riccobono's documentary The Seventh Fire.
In 2017, Britell won the Discovery of the Year Award at the World Soundtrack Awards in Ghent, Belgium and also received the Distinguished Composer Award from the Middleburg Film Festival. In May 2019, he was awarded - with music supervisor Gabe Hilfer - the first-ever ASCAP Harmony Award celebrating outstanding collaborative achievement between composers and music supervisors for If Beale Street Could Talk. In 2012, he was the recipient of a Henry Mancini Fellowship from the ASCAP Foundation and also won the ASCAP/Doddle Award for Collaborative Achievement.
Britell is a Steinway Artist and is also a Creative Associate of the Juilliard School; he speaks often and gives masterclasses at conservatories and universities including the Eastman Conservatory, Harvard University, Columbia University, New York University, the Mannes School of Music, and Vassar College. In December 2018, it was announced that Britell will be part of Esa-Pekka Salonen's newly formed creative collective "brain trust" as Salonen takes the reins as music director of the San Francisco Symphony. His recent public performances have included concerts at London's Barbican Hall, the Million Dollar Theatre in Los Angeles, Chicago's Ravinia, and Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall.
As a producer, Britell produced Damien Chazelle's short film Whiplash, which won the Jury Award for Best US Fiction Short at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival. Following the initial success of the short, he served as co-producer on the Oscar-nominated feature film Whiplash which won Sundance's 2014 Jury Prize and Audience Award.
Britell is an honors and Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Harvard University, as well as a piano performance graduate of the Juilliard School's Pre-College Division. He returned in May 2016 as the Pre-College's commencement speaker.- Composer
- Music Department
- Actor
Born in Poland in 1955, Zbigniew Preisner studied philosophy and history in the university of Cracow. In his twenties he started to study music in a autodidactical way: buying records and learning to write by taking the music in parts. He started to write his own compositions. His style has always been very romantic, influenced by romantic polish composers from the XIX century and others like Paganini or Sibelius. He has always emphasized the importance of melody in music. He doesn't like experimental modern music.
In 1981 he began his collaboration with filmmakers. While he was working with Antoni Krauze's movie "Weather Report" he met director Krzystof Kieslowski who invited him to work in his new movie "No End" about Poland under the martial law at the beginning of the 80s.
With that movie he began a very close collaboration with Kieslowski and his screenwriter Krzystof Piesiewicz. He works while the script for the movie is still being written but he usually also takes part in the editing of the movie.
Their next collaboration became a success worldwide. "Decalogue" won the European film award for best film and also awards in Cannes and other festivals. Kieslowski became one of the most importants directors in Europe and Preisner the leading film music composer of his generation.
At the same time he continued his collaboration with Kieslowski in such films like "La double vie de Veronique" and the trilogy of colours ("Blue", "White" and "Red") he also wrote soundtracks for others important directors like Louis Malle, Agniezka Holland or Héctor Babenco.
His collaboration with Kieslowski ended with his death in 1996. In the last years Preisner not only has continued his collaboration in others movies but he also has been involved in others musical projects like the writing of an opera to be performed in London and features for the Varsovia Simphony orchestra.- Composer
- Music Department
- Actor
Michael Giacchino is an American composer of music for films, television and video games.
Giacchino composed the scores to the television series Lost, Alias and Fringe, the video game series Medal of Honor and Call of Duty and many films such as The Incredibles (2004), Star Trek (2009), Up (2009), Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014), Jurassic World (2015), Inside Out (2015), Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), War for the Planet of the Apes (2017) and Coco (2017).
For his work on Up he earned an Academy Award for Best Original Score.- Composer
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- Soundtrack
Henrik Skram was born in 1973 in Norway. Henrik is a composer, known for Kysset (2022), Rose (2022) and Snøfall (2016).- Composer
- Music Department
- Actor
Jonny Greenwood was born on 5 November 1971 in Oxford, Oxfordshire, England, UK. He is a composer and actor, known for The Master (2012), There Will Be Blood (2007) and Phantom Thread (2017). He has been married to Sharona Katan since 1995. They have three children.- Composer
- Music Department
- Actor
Max Richter was born on 22 March 1966 in Hamelin, Lower Saxony, West Germany. He is a composer and actor, known for Arrival (2016), The Leftovers (2014) and Ad Astra (2019).- Composer
- Music Department
- Sound Department
Javier Navarrete was born in 1956 in Teruel, Aragón, Spain. He is a composer, known for Pan's Labyrinth (2006), Wrath of the Titans (2012) and Byzantium (2012).- Music Department
- Composer
- Actor
As Danny Elfman was growing up in the Los Angeles area, he was largely unaware of his talent for composing. It wasn't until the early 1970s that Danny and his older brother Richard Elfman started a musical troupe while in Paris; the group "Mystic Knights of Oingo-Boingo" was created for Richard's directorial debut, Forbidden Zone (1980) (now considered a cult classic by Elfman fans). The group's name went through many incarnations over the years, beginning with "The Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo" and eventually just Oingo Boingo. While continuing to compose eclectic, intelligent rock music for his L.A.-based band (some of which had been used in various film soundtracks, e.g. Weird Science (1985)), Danny formed a friendship with young director Tim Burton, who was then a fan of Oingo Boingo. Danny went on to score the soundtrack of Pee-wee's Big Adventure (1985), Danny's first orchestral film score. The Elfman-Burton partnership continued (most notably through the hugely-successful "Batman" flicks) and opened doors of opportunity for Danny, who has been referred to as "Hollywood's hottest film composer".- Composer
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- Music Department
Jan P. Muchow was born on 21 June 1971 in Rathenow, German Democratic Republic [now Brandenburg, Federal Republic of Germany]. He is a composer and actor, known for Ve stínu (2012), Jedna ruka netleská (2003) and Grandhotel (2006).- Composer
- Music Department
- Sound Department
Pritam Chakraborty was born on 14 June 1971 in Calcutta, West Bengal, India. He is a composer, known for Barfi! (2012), Dilwale (2015) and Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani (2013).- Composer
- Music Department
- Actor
Marcelo Zarvos was born in 1969 in São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil. He is a composer and actor, known for Wonder (2017), Fences (2016) and Enough Said (2013). He has been married to Janel Moloney since 5 January 2010. They have two children.- Composer
- Music Department
- Producer
Marco Beltrami was born on 7 October 1966 in New York City, New York, USA. He is a composer and producer, known for I, Robot (2004), World War Z (2013) and Knowing (2009).- Composer
- Music Department
- Soundtrack
Wojciech Lemanski is known for Edi (2002), Idealny facet dla mojej dziewczyny (2009) and Eva (2016).- Composer
- Music Department
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Composer Eric Neveux was 25 when he met director François Ozon (Swimming Pool, 8 Women) and composed the score for his first long-form film, See the Sea. Ozon then asked him to score his first feature film, Sitcom. Shortly thereafter, Neveux began a long-term collaboration with Patrice Chéreau, scoring his film Those Who Love Me Can Take the Train (Cannes Film Festival Official Selection, 1997), followed by Intimacy (Berlin Film Festival Golden Bear award-winner, 2001), and Persecution, (Venice Film Festival, 2009).
Eric Neveux has composed original music for 60 feature films, as well as a variety of scores for TV movies and series. Recent score highlights include two installments of director Rachid Bouchareb's American Trilogy; Just Like a Woman (starring Sienna Miller and Golshifteh Farahani), and Two Men in Town(2014), with Forest Whitaker and Harvey Keitel; and later, Bouchareb's film Road to Istanbul in 2016 (the last two being official selections of the Berlin Film Festival). Eric's passion for independent film is further illustrated by his work on titles such as La Vie Domestique by Isabelle Czajka, Standing Tall (La Tête Haute) by Emmanuelle Bercot, the Cannes Film Festival's opening film in 2015, The Attack (2013), and The Insult (2017), by Ziad Doueiri which was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the 90th Academy Awards.
Under the moniker Mr. Neveux, Eric made important contributions to the 90s Downtempo music scene, most notably with the release of his album, TUBA (Cup of Tea Records). Later he co-founded Microbe Records, a respected home for indie artists in France and the United Kingdom.
Eric and his family divide their time between Los Angeles and Paris.- Composer
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Javier Navarrete was born in 1956 in Teruel, Aragón, Spain. He is a composer, known for Pan's Labyrinth (2006), Wrath of the Titans (2012) and Byzantium (2012).- Composer
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Carlo Crivelli was born on 15 April 1953 in Rome, Lazio, Italy. He is a composer and actor, known for Devil in the Flesh (1986), Dormant Beauty (2012) and Elective Affinities (1996).- Composer
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Carlo Crivelli was born on 15 April 1953 in Rome, Lazio, Italy. He is a composer and actor, known for Devil in the Flesh (1986), Dormant Beauty (2012) and Elective Affinities (1996).