Tag Archives: Awards

event, Industry news

Composer of Conclave picks up Soundtrack Award

At the 25th World Soundtrack Awards Ceremony & Concert, the centrepiece of Film Fest Gent in Belgium, leading and emerging voices in screen composition were honoured. German composer Volker Bertelmann, also known as Hauschka, was named Film Composer of the Year for his scores to Conclave and The Amateur, reaffirming the inventive sensibility that earned him an Academy and BAFTA for All Quiet on the Western Front.

Volker Bertelmann Ph: (c) Jeroen Willems

British talent Daniel Blumberg received the Discovery of the Year Award for his haunting score to Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist, further consolidating his reputation as a bold new presence in international film music.

Theodore Shapiro claimed Television Composer of the Year for his unnerving score to Severance (Apple TV+), while Emilia Pérez’s fiercest anthem, “El Mal”, written by Clément Ducol, -Camille– and Jacques Audiard, took Best Original Song.

Audience acclaim went to Laetitia Pansanel‑Garric, whose Hola Frida intertwined Mexican influences with orchestral lyricism. Lorien Testard earned the Game Music Award for the painterly sound world of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, and Ruben De Gheselle was named Belgian Film Composer of the Year for Young Hearts and There Was, There Was Not.

South Korean composer Bongseop Kim won the Young Composer Prize for his score to a scene from The Elephant Man. Lifetime Achievement honours went jointly to Philip Glass and Michael Nyman, saluted for five decades of transformative, minimalist sound.

Full details on worldsoundtrackawards.com

(Michael Leahy. Photo: (c)Jeroen Willems / World Soundtrack Awards)

Industry news

Laurence Rosenthal to receive lifetime award

Laurence Rosenthal is set to receive a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 23rd edition of the World Soundtrack Awards, which takes place as the concluding event of Film Fest Gent on Saturday 21 October.

Rosenthal is a seasoned writer who has written music for over a hundred films and television shows. These include George Lucas’ “The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles” (1992) and its subsequent TV movies.

Photo credit: Matthew Joseph Peak

Nadia Boulanger and Salzburg

Born in Detroit in 1926, Rosenthal began his music studies at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York. Upon graduation, he moved to Paris to study composition with Nadia Boulanger and to Salzburg to learn conducting at the Mozarteum. After his military service, he went back to New York and began composing for Broadway theatre and motion pictures.

Rosenthal’s early work for feature films includes the scores for Daniel Petrie’s “A Raisin in the Sun” (1961) and Arthur Penn’s Oscar-winning film “The Miracle Worker” (1962). In the 60s, he enjoyed a strong creative partnership with actor-director Peter Glenville, for whom he wrote three original film scores. His first was an exotic score for a Broadway theatrical version of the classic Japanese film of Kurosawa, “Rashomon”.

Sherry! album sleeve
The musical Sherry! on Amazon

Awards for TV

Over the years, Rosenthal has also composed extensively for television, winning seven Emmy Awards and two Academy award nominations . His best-known work for television is the triple Emmy-winning music for “The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles” and its complementary TV films, along with the iconic “Fantasy Island” (1977).

The World Soundtrack Awards

The World Soundtrack Awards were launched in 2001 by the Film Fest Gent (Belgium). The goal was to promote the understanding of film music and celebrate its auteurs. The event takes place yearly in Ghent, with a ceremony that is accompanied by the Brussels Philharmonic under the baton of Dirk Brossé.

Apart from the three main categories, the World Soundtrack Awards recognize other accomplishments in film music, such as:

  • the Discovery of the Year
  • Public Choice Award
  • Lifetime Achievement Award
  • Sabam Award for the Most Original Composition by a Young International Composer
  • Major Contribution to the Art of Film Music and Sound
  • Most Creative Use of Existing Material on a Soundtrack
  • Best Original Score of the Year Not Released on an Album
  • Best Original Film Score of the Year,
  • and Best Original Score for a Belgian Production.

The list of 2022 winners included Jonny Greenwood, Nicholas Britell, Eiko Ishibashi and Bruno Coulais.