composer: Last News

Shinji Aoyama, the Japanese film director, writer and composer known for the film “Eureka,” which won him two prizes at the 2000 Cannes Film Festival, died March 21 in Tokyo after a battle with esophageal cancer, according to local reports. He was 57.Aoyama made waves in the international film community when he premiered “Eureka” at Cannes.

Jon Burlingame editorPam Hupp, the real-life murderer played by Renee Zellweger in NBC’s “The Thing About Pam,” apparently had a habit of slurping her flavored soft drink from the local convenience store. It’s a recurring gag in the six-part series, and it even became part of its musical score.Sonya Belousova and Giona Ostinelli, the composing team whose music for “The Witcher” became a viral hit in early 2020, have spent the last five months coming up with unique sounds for “Pam,” which dramatizes a small-town Missouri murder in 2011 and the botched police investigation that followed.“This is a true-crime, network show,” Ostinelli notes, “and there is a certain sound that goes with this.

Gordon Cox Theater EditorExpanding accessibility is an ongoing concern for Broadway — and this spring, the musician Gaelynn Lea arrives with lessons she learned from advocating for the cause in the music industry.Listen to this week’s “Stagecraft” podcast below:“Maybe the biggest lesson that I’ve learned is just how much people haven’t thought of [accessibility], and why it’s important to talk about it,” said Lea on the new episode of Stagecraft, Variety’s theater podcast. The singer-songwriter, a wheelchair user who was born with the genetic condition osteogenesis imperfecta, will soon get her first Broadway credit as the composer of the original music in the Broadway revival of “Macbeth,” starring Daniel Craig and Ruth Negga.

She netted both the goals and offered an impressive all-round display in the win against Glasgow Women.

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe said she will set aside the “black hole in my heart” left by six years of captivity in Iran.

Jon Burlingame Film composers are always looking for novel ways to express ideas and convey character in music. Two of this year’s original-score nominees were especially innovative in finding musical solutions for storytelling challenges.“Dune” demanded a sonic landscape unlike anything composer Hans Zimmer had ever tackled (including such sci-fi projects as “Inception” and “Interstellar,” which brought him two of his previous 11 Oscar nominations).

Jon Burlingame editorComposer Germaine Franco’s Oscar nomination for “Encanto” is a landmark moment in film music:– She is the first Latina to be nominated in that category;– She is only the sixth woman ever to be nominated for an original score;– And she is the first woman to score a Disney film.But ask any of her colleagues in the profession and they’ll tell you something else: that it’s a triumph for a musically talented, genuinely kind person who has worked hard her entire life, dating back decades to her childhood in El Paso, Texas, just across the border from where her grandparents were born in Chihuahua and Durango, Mexico.Franco landed the “Encanto” assignment in part because she had firmly established the Mexican backdrop of Disney’s 2017 film “Coco” via her orchestrations and original songs. Says Lin-Manuel Miranda, who is also nominated as songwriter for “Encanto”: “I admired her work on ‘Coco’ and it was really important to me that we have a Latino music team.

A.D. Amorosi To complement Japanese director Ryûsuke Hamaguchi’s grieving, soft-spun vision for “Drive My Car,” which has received four Oscar noms including director and best picture, the choice of composer to create a melodramatic and delicate score was crucial.Enter Eiko Ishibashi, an experimental Japanese multi-instrumentalist whose 2018 “The Dream My Bones Dream” was a turning point in an already decade-long career of scores for theater and short films.Ishibashi’s 2018 album of haunting soundscapes and its electro-acoustic mix of noise, oddball pop, improvisational jazz and minimalist, modern classical music made her a cinematic force equal to Hamaguchi.

May is now appearing on the horizon, which means this year’s Great Escape will be with us very soon. Yesterday 120 more artists were added to the bill, including Alfie Templeman, Blackhaine, Chrissi, MUNA, Spill Tab, STONE, Bru-C, Casisdead, Kid Kapichi, Lido Pimienta and many more.

Composer Alberto Iglesias returns to the Oscars for a fourth time and his fourth Original Score nomination with Parallel Mothers. 

Naman Ramachandran The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) has named ten emerging talents from across the Indian film, gaming and television industries that will participate in the 2022 edition of its BAFTA Breakthrough India initiative supported by Netflix.The 2022 contingent includes writer-director Ajitpal Singh (“Tabbar,” “Fire in the Mountain”); composer Alokananda Dasgupta (“Sacred Games”), writer-director Arati Kadav (“Cargo”), producer Mathivanan Rajendran (“Nirvana Inn”), writer-director Leena Manimekalai (“Maadathy, an Unfairy Tale”), game director Nakul Verma (“In My Shadow”), writer-director Prateek Vats (“Eeb Allay Ooo!”), cinematographer Saumyananda Sahi (“Eeb Allay Ooo!”), writer Shubham (“Eeb Allay Ooo!”) and performer Sumukhi Suresh (“Pushpavalli”). The talents were selected by a jury consisting of BAFTA-winning composer A.R.

Jon Burlingame editorIn a possible preview of what may take home Oscars for music, “No Time to Die” songwriters Billie Eilish and Finneas O’Connell and “Encanto” composer Germaine Franco won Society of Composers & Lyricists awards Tuesday night at Los Angeles’ Skirball Center.Franco’s Colombian-flavored music for “Encanto” took the award for outstanding original score for a studio film, overtaking scores for “Dune” and “The Power of the Dog,” among others, in the balloting. Daniel Hart’s medieval sounds for “The Green Knight” won original score for an independent film.

The Society of Composers & Lyricists’ announced the winners of its 3rd Annual SCL Awards this evening at The Skirball Cultural Center. The event, which was hosted by rapper Aloe Blacc, recognizes composers and songwriters in all visual media.

Ian Evatt admitted that Morecambe got under the skin of Bolton Wanderers towards the end of the first half of their draw last night as he felt his side became too emotional after conceding.

Bolton Wanderers came from behind to claim a dramatic late point at home to Morecambe.

EXCLUSIVE: Deadline has the first exclusive track from Craig DeLeon’s score for The Last Days of Ptolemy Gray, which is set for digital release via Lakeshore Records on March 11, as the Apple TV+ series debuts globally with its first two episodes.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorAs more and more companies have cut ties with Russia in the wake of the country’s invasion of Ukraine, many have wondered why more music companies have not done the same.Early Tuesday, the U.K.’s performing rights organization, PRS for Music, said it has formally and immediately suspended its rights representation relationship with RAO, the Russian collecting society for musical works, “pending confirmation of its separation from the Russian Government and those individuals and companies on the sanctions lists.“We are also working with CISAC to consider the ongoing membership of Russian societies in the global network. It is not our desire to punish the Russian composer, songwriter and publisher communities who support peace, and we will work with the global community to identify opportunities to amplify the voices of protest.

On Sunday's Euphoria Season 2 finale, Dominic Fike, who plays Elliot, took out an acoustic guitar to sing a warm, heartfelt song to Zendaya (Rue) that touched on their rocky friendship. Today, the Florida singer has shared a studio version "Elliot's Song." And don't worry, it is shorter than the lengthy in-show version, which was memed to death online. "Elliot's Song" was written with Zendaya (who contributed vocals to the studio version) and was produced by series composer Labrinth.

Celtic finally broke their Livingston hoodoo as they picked up their first win in six attempts in West Lothian with a composed performance against the Lions.

The Ukrainian Chorus Dumka of New York hopes its recent "Saturday Night Live" performance sheds light on the ongoing war in Ukraine. The chorus consists of nonprofessional singers performing classical, sacred and folk choral music, primarily by Ukrainian composers.

Director Byron Howard joined producer Yvett Merino and composer Germaine Franco on a panel at Deadline’s Contenders Film: The Nominees event to discuss Encanto, the Disney movie that is nominated for three Oscars.