By Ray Bennett
LONDON – Concerts at the World Soundtrack Awards are among the best film music events in the business – Hans Zimmer’s performance of his “Inception” score a couple of years ago (pictured) was one of the best. Organisers have announced that this year’s awards ceremony will feature the great French composer Alexandre Desplat.
The World Soundtrack Academy also announced the list of its nominees for the 2013 Awards in three of five categories: Film Composer of the Year, Best Original Score of the Year and Best Original Song Written Directly for a Film.
The names of the winners will be announced at the World Soundtrack Awards & Concert on Saturday Oct. 19, the closing night of the 40th edition of the Ghent International Film Festival.
FILM COMPOSER OF THE YEAR
(Award can be presented in respect of one film or in respect of a body of work in the year)
Mychael Danna
(Life of Pi)
Alexandre Desplat
(Argo, Reality, Renoir, Rise of the Guardians, Zero Dark Thirty)
Danny Elfman
(Epic, Frankenweenie, Hitchcock, Oz The Great and Powerful, Promised Land, Silver Linings Playbook)
James Newton Howard
(After Earth, The Bourne Legacy)
Thomas Newman
(Side Effects, Skyfall)
BEST ORIGINAL FILM SCORE OF THE YEAR
Anna Karenina by Dario Marianelli
The Hobbit: an Unexpected Journey by Howard Shore
Life of Pi by Mychael Danna
The Master by Jonny Greenwood
Skyfall by Thomas Newman
BEST ORIGINAL SONG WRITTEN DIRECTLY FOR A FILM
The Bathtub
from “Beasts of the Southern Wild”
music & Lyrics by Dan Romer & Benh Zeitlin
performed by The Lost Bayou Ramblers
Young & Beautiful
from “The Great Gatsby”
music & lyrics by Lana Del Rey & Rick Nowels
performed by Lana Del Rey
Pi’s Lullaby
from “Life of Pi”
music & lyrics by Mychael Danna and Bombay Jayashri
performed by Bombay Jayashri
Oblivion
from: “Oblivion”
music & lyrics by Anthony Gonzalez and Susanne Sundfør
performed by M83 feat. Susanne Sundfør
Skyfall
from “Skyfall”
music & lyrics by Adele & Paul Epworth
performed by Adele
AWARDS CONCERT
French composer Alexandre Desplat will appear for a traditional film music concert during the second part of the World Soundtrack Academy award ceremony. Last year, he scored eight feature films: the Oscar winning “Argo” by Ben Affleck, “Zero Dark Thirty” by Kathryn Bigelow, “Rise of the Guardians” by Peter Ramsey, “Renoir” by Gilles Bourdos, “Reality” by Matteo Garrone, “De Rouille et d’Os” by Jacques Audiard, “Moonrise Kingdom” by Wes Anderson and “Cloclo” by Florent-Emilio Siri. This year’s Cannes Film Festival programme featured two more films for which Desplat has written scores: “Venus in Fur” by Roman Polanski and “Zulu” by Jérôme Salle.
LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD FOR RIZ ORTOLANI
This year’s Lifetime Achievement Award to be presented during the award ceremony of the WSA concert goes to the Italian composer Riz Ortolani, born in 1931 in Pesaro, Italy. Together with Ennio Morricone and the late Carlo Rustichelli and Nino Rota, Ortolani is one of the greats of Italian film music from the golden era of Italian cinema. While the best-known titles from his filmography may be entrenched in the Sixties and Seventies, in recent years, he has once again become a ‘cult’ composer thanks to Quentin Tarantino. Nicolas Winding Refn also played his part in the Ortolani revival. In his stylish thriller ‘Drive’, he introduced the most hypnotising song by the composer (performed by Ortolani’s muse Katyna Ranieri) to new audiences: Oh My Love, originally written for the notorious exploitation classic ‘Goodbye Uncle Tom’ (1971) by G. Jacopetti.
DISCOVERY AND PUBLIC CHOICE AWARD
At the end of August, the Academy Board will announce the 5 nominees for the category ‘Discovery of the Year 2013’. In addition to the Awards presented by the Academy, film music fans around the world can vote for the best soundtrack of the year (see www.worldsoundtrackacademy.com).