composer: Last News

K.J. Yossman Freida Pinto is lending her voice to a new animated film project in honor of International Women’s Day. She Creates Change is a new nonprofit-led animation and live action film project from global education organization Room to Read produced by Nexus Studios. The multi-media initiative, which spans a six-episode film series as well as books and audio stories, aims to promote gender equality through telling the stories of young women across the planet. It will initially be available in English, Hindi and Spanish with plans to translate it into dozens more languages and will be distributed across the world via Room to Read and educational partnerships. The project will also be released to general audiences in October.

Indian actress Janhvi Kapoor has signed on star in the next film from RRR star N.T. Rama Rao Jr., (a.k.a. NTR Jr.), titled NTR 30.

Riz Ahmed, Dev Patel, Judd Apatow, Mira Nair, and Mark Duplass are among the many admirers of the Oscar-nominated documentary All That Breathes, directed by Shaunak Sen. Now you can add the people at Criterion to the movie’s legion of fans.

Visionary composer, saxophonist and visual artist Wayne Shorter has passed away at the age of 89.

his 13th GRAMMY. He was 89.In a statement released by Shorter's reps, the musician died on Thursday in Los Angeles surrounded by his loving family.The last few years of Shorter's life were filled with creativity, including the realization of his opera, , written in collaboration with Esperanza Spalding, which played to widespread critical acclaim across the country in 2020, and the 2018 release of his GRAMMY-winning triple album and graphic novel, .Born in 1933 in Newark, New Jersey, Shorter had a career that spanned six decades.

Jon Burlingame editor In what may be the most difficult-to-predict score competition in years, the original-music Oscar could go to a sentimental favorite, a past nominee or the newcomer to the race. Academy members begin voting today. Legendary composer John Williams broke records again by becoming the most nominated living person (53 nominations, winning five), earning the highest number of nominations ever in the music categories, and (it is believed, per the Academy) becoming the oldest nominee ever for a competitive award. He is 91. His nomination for “The Fabelmans” surprised some outsiders, as his fairly spare score is often overshadowed by the several classical pieces performed by Mitzi (Michelle Williams), the character based on director Steven Spielberg’s piano-playing mom. But it passed the 35% rule — that is, more than a third of the total musical content must be original dramatic score — or it would have been disqualified by the Academy’s strict music-branch executive committee.

Jazz Tangcay Artisans Editor When writer Charlie Mackesy was searching for someone to score the music for the adaptation of his beloved book 2019 book “The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse,” he thought of Isobel Waller-Bridge. The story about four characters who are lost and need connection is about vulnerability, and for Waller-Bridge and Mackesy, the idea of needing connectiion was best relayed through a musical palette using the piano and a cello. Here, Waller-Bridge discusses navigating the score and the most important music cues. My brother gave me the book for Christmas in 2019. I remember opening it and seeing these beautiful illustrations and these poetic words, and I just fell in love with it. When Charlie asked me to write the music for the film, it was an incredibly profound thing because this book was so precious to me and because of the impact that it has had on people through the pandemic. I felt a huge responsibility to do justice to Charlie’s vision and its existence.

Jon Burlingame Will Oscar voters choose a superstar or go for a high-energy dance number from an Indian-language film? That’s the dilemma facing voters as they mull over the five best song nominees for 2022 – and voting begins today. Rihanna (“Lift Me Up” from “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever”), Lady Gaga (“Hold My Hand” from “Top Gun: Maverick”) and ex-Talking Heads frontman David Byrne (“This Is a Life” from “Everything Everywhere All at Once”) are in the running. Yet, even with all that star power, the presumptive frontrunner of late has been seen as “Naatu Naatu,” from the Telugu film “RRR.” It all depends on what’s caught the fancy of voters during the run-up to the six-day voting period. Oscar history is rife with examples of songs that outpolled the expected picks at the last minute, simply because voters couldn’t escape the radio play (or, nowadays, TikTok) of the newest hit.

Gene Maddaus Senior Media Writer The International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees released a survey Wednesday finding that visual effects workers lack access to portable health insurance and retirement plans. The survey found that among visual effects workers who work on the “client side” of the business, only 12% have a health insurance plan that they can take from job to job. Another 45% get healthcare only for the duration of their project, while 43% do not have health insurance at all. The union released the results as it wages a campaign to organize VFX workers, who have not had labor representation. The survey also highlighted the lack of other benefits that come with union jobs, including employer-sponsored retirement plans, breaks and rest periods, and overtime pay. The survey found that some workers on the lower end of the pay scale barely make minimum wage, when unpaid overtime is factored in.

Son Lux is the first band ever to be nominated for best original score at the Oscars with Everything Everywhere All at Once, and this year they’re the only composer to own noms in original score and original song the latter for their collaboration with Mitski and Oscar winner/former Talking Heads frontman David Byrne with “This is a Life”, the end credits song of the A24 movie.

Jazz Tangcay Artisans Editor A new report from ReFrame shows that gender-balanced hiring for women in film plateaued in 2022. “Everything Everywhere All At Once,” “The Woman King,” “Women Talking” and “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” are among the films that earned ReFrame‘s “stamp” of a gender-balanced production. Only 29 of the 100 most popular films of last year meet ReFrame’s stamp criteria, which require that at least 50% of key roles on a film set be filled by women or nonbinary/gender non-conforming people. Key roles include writer, director, producer, lead, co-leads and department heads (cinematographer, production designer, casting director, costume designer, editor, composer, music supervisor, VFX supervisor). Additional points are awarded to productions that hire women of color in key positions, and to those with overall gender parity in their crews.

Boygenius – the trio of Phoebe Bridgers, Lucy Dacus and Julien Baker – have been added to this year’s Tibet House US benefit concert bill.The event, which is set to go ahead tomorrow night (March 1) in New York’s Carnegie Hall, will also see performances from composer and event artistic director Philip Glass, New Order’s Bernard Sumner and Tom Chapman, Laurie Anderson, Gogol Bordello, and Arooj Aftab.Uma Thurman, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Peter Sarsgaard, and Arden Wohl will be the event’s honorary chairs. You can purchase tickets here.This will be the third time Bridgers has performed at the event after previously playing in 2020 and 2021.Last year’s line-up was a virtual edition due to the coronavirus pandemic and featured performances from Keanu Reeves, Patti Smith, and Anderson again.Boygenius, who formed for a self-titled EP in 2018 and will release debut album ‘The Record’ next month, will play two UK shows this summer.On August 20, they will play a massive outdoor London show at Gunnersbury Park, joined by MUNA and Ethel Cain, with the latter also playing with them two days later at Halifax’s Piece Hall.Tickets for the gigs go on sale from 10am GMT on Friday (March 3).

The Weeknd is turning his talents towards the world of film.

“Naatu Naatu” is coming to the Oscars.

Telling his own story was a new challenge for Steven Spielberg.

The Voices Behind ‘Naatu Naatu’ Kaala Bhairava and Rahul Sipligunj are the singers who brought composer M.M. Keeravaani’s Golden Globe-winning and Oscar nominated song “Naatu Naatu” from S.S. Rajamouli’s “RRR” to life.  Featuring lyrics by Chandrabose, the energetic song, shot against the backdrop of the Mariinskyi Palace in Kyiv, Ukraine, shows stars Ram Charan and N.T. Rama Rao Jr. in a dance-off.  Bhairava is the son of Keeravaani and has watched the composer work since childhood. He made his film singing debut in 2011 with “Rajanna” and has sung several hit songs since. He made his film composing debut with 2019’s “Mathu Vadalara.” 

Kristin Chenoweth has her eyes set on a Broadway return!

EXCLUSIVE: A new musical based on the award-winning 2012 documentary The Queen of Versailles and the life of beauty queen, socialite and TV personality Jacqueline “Jackie” Siegel is in development, with Kristin Chenoweth attached to star and produce.

David de Gea

Ludwig Göransson Composer Ludwig Göransson won an Oscar in 2019 for his “Black Panther” score, and is again nominated for the original song Academy Award for “Lift Me Up” from the sequel, “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” along with Rihanna, Tems and director-writer Ryan Coogler. In the film, Coogler wrestles with the loss of Chadwick Boseman, T’Challa, the original Black Panther, the impact of that loss on the other characters, including T’Challa’s sister Shuri (Letitia Wright) and introduces audiences to a new, underwater civilization in the Gulf of Mexico, Talokan, led by Namor (Tenoch Huerta). Göransson reflects on how the song came together: Four years ago, while I was recording in Senegal, I was introduced to a beautiful West African instrument called the kora. The first seeds of “Lift Me Up” came from that trip, and I used a part of the melody in the first “Black Panther” when T’Challa travels to the ancestral plain for the first time and sees his father who has passed on. Hearing it now in a song meant to memorialize Chadwick Boseman himself has been both devastating and cathartic.

Jon Burlingame It’s anybody’s game: this is a rare year when any of the five original-score nominees could win the Oscar. Two of the nominees are previous winners, two more are past nominees; only one is a newcomer, and it’s a three-man ensemble. Four films are period pieces: an admired German-language war film, a character study set against the Irish civil war, an epic of late 1920s Hollywood, and a coming-of-age story for a young filmmaker in the ‘50s and ‘60s; the fifth is a wild, anarchic tale of a Chinese American family that saves the universe. And the nominees are: