Congrats to Howard Shore on winning Colonne Sonore's "Best Music for a Foreign Film" for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey!

Online voting began on February 2nd and closed on February 28th, seeing the participation of more than 1,000 film score enthusiasts submitting their own preferences over selections spread over six categories. The nominations were submitted by ColonneSonore.net staff editors, who chose names and titles through internal votes and ballots among the overall eligible works released through year 2012. The goal was to represent at best the eclectic and high-quality work in film and television music by both Italian and foreign composers.

Here are the results of the public survey:

In the category "Best Music for an Italian Film", composer Paolo Vivaldi won for the captivating score Maternity Blues, written for the intense melodramatic film directed by Fabrizio Cattani.

Young talent Andrea Farri has been recognized both as "Best Italian Composer of the Year" (thanks to his outstanding work in films like Gli sfiorati and 10 regole per fare innamorare) and for "Best Music for Italian TV Fiction" for the score of the acclaimed series Squadra Antimafia: Palermo Oggi 4, broadcasted successfully on Mediaset channels.

A surprising tie resulted in the category "Best Original Song for an Italian Film": young and talented singer-songwriter Thony won for "Time Speaks" (written for the film Tutti i santi giorni, directed by Paolo Virzì), and Elisa and Andrea Guerra got recognized for "Love is Requited", the main theme song of Roberto Faenza's Un giorno questo dolore ti sarà utile (Someday This Pain Will Be Useful).

A win tie is also found in the category "Best Music for a Foreign Language Film": Howard Shore won for his monumental score to The Hobbit - An Unexpected Journey, while the legendary John Williams got recognized for his poignant musical score for Steven Spielberg's Lincoln.

John Williams was also elected "Best Foreign Composer of the Year", thanks to his exceptional work on the Steven Spielberg film.

All winners will receive a certificated plaque.

You can see the results of the public survey to the following link:

http://www.colonnesonore.net/sondaggi/

We hope this is only the beginning of a long and lasting tradition aimed to recognize the art of applied music both in our country and all over the world. Thanks to everyone who participated and voted and made this possible!

The full list of winners of the ColonneSonore.net Awards - 2012 Edition

Best Music for an Italian Film Music

PAOLO VIVALDI, Maternity Blues

Best Italian Composer of the Year

ANDREA FARRI

Best Original Song for an Italian Film

tie:

ELISA and ANDREA GUERRA, "Love is requited" - from the film Un giorno questo dolore ti sarà utile (Someday This Pain Will Be Useful)

THONY, "Time Speaks" - from the film Tutti i santi giorni

Best Music for Italian TV Fiction

ANDREA FARRI, Squadra Antimafia: Palermo Oggi 4

Best Music for a Foreign Language Film

tie:

JOHN WILLIAMS, Lincoln

HOWARD SHORE, The Hobbit - An Unexpected Journey

Best Foreign Composer of the Year

JOHN WILLIAMS

I'm telling you, folks, you will want to read this book very closely before Hobbit time! It pays to invest oneself in the details ...

But enough of my hackneyed sales pitch. Big thanks to the Geek League. Their Music of LOTR entry is below;  you can read their full list right HERE.

It saddened me not to include a Lord of the Rings book on my initial draft of this list. There is simply no book available that covers LOTR’s extensive production from beginning to end in a fashion that I recommend. The Extended Edition Blu-ray/DVD collections and Costa Botes’ fly-on-the-wall documentaries really do the best job covering all of it. I would be remiss, however, if I didn’t include Doug Adams’ (no, not that Doug Adams) mind-blowingly extensive account of Howard Shore’s scores of the films. Loaded with illustrations from Alan Lee and John Howe, this book covers all three films and the musical themes developed therein.  

Adams is a musicologist, so this isn’t light reading. It talks about what goes into scoring these films, both from extensive interviews with Howard Shore as well as musical theory, and requires a little music acumen to totally comprehend the finer points of the text. It also comes with an exclusive rarities CD that features original concept recordings and versions of themes that didn’t make it to the big screen. Doug Adams is working on a new book for The Hobbit and like Rinzler’s ROTJ book, my pre-order is ready to go.

I'm not sure what's proper. In the stage world you're never supposed to say "good luck" -- "break a leg" is much preferred. (You're also not supposed to mention Macbeth, though that seems highly unlikely to come up in this situation.) The opera world depends on "Toi Toi Toi" to ensure good fortune. Someone once told me that Australians use "chookas" for the same purpose -- I rather like that one.

At any rate, best wishes to Hugo and all those representing it at the Oscars this weekend. Chookas three tois and a broken leg to you all!

Wait, I'm not sure that came out right ...

Warmly,

Doug

The LA Times spoke with Howard Shore today regarding his recent Academy Award nomination. Included was a little nugget I think you might find interesting. Excerpts below:

Some things never get old. Just ask composer Howard Shore, who woke to a phone call very early Tuesday morning in Hawaii and learned he had earned his fourth Academy Award nomination. "It's always thrilling," Howard said of being nominated, this time for his original score for Martin Scorsese's "Hugo."

The film, about an orphan living in a train station in 1930s Paris, leads the Oscar pack with 11 nominations, and it marks Shore's sixth film with Scorsese. "It's a wonderful collaboration," Howard said of working with the director. "I think [Scorsese] works with music the way he works with all his other collaborators: I think he casts well, and then he shapes and guides and inspires."

In writing the music for "Hugo," Shore drew inspiration from the film's time and setting, 1930s Paris. "It's a very rich period of music," Shore said. "It's the exuberance and the thrill of making movies in this early period with this new technology. … It's a very rich world to write in and compose in, and it's very inspiring to me."

[...] 

After his layover in Hawaii, Shore is headed to New Zealand, where he is working on "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey" with director Peter Jackson.

The Academy Award nomination for BEST SCORE of 2011 are in:


Ludovic Bource THE ARTIST
Alberto Igelsias TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY
John Williams TINTIN
John Williams WAR HORSE

HUGO, incidentally, also garnered nominations for BEST PICTURE, DIRECTING, ADAPTED SCREENPLAY, ART DIRECTION, CINEMATOGRAPHY, SOUND MIXING, SOUND EDITING, COSTUMES, FILM EDITING, VISUAL EFFECTS.

Congratulations to all nominees!

ORIGINAL MUSIC 

THE ARTIST Ludovic Bource
THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross
HUGO Howard Shore
TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY Alberto Iglesias
WAR HORSE John Williams

This is slightly out-of-date, but video interviews are always fun to watch.

Howard Shore and Elizabeth Cotnoir discuss their work on the award-winning score to Hugo.

 

MyDesert.com has a nice little followup on the Palm Springs Film Festival gala, which was held last night (January 7):

"It's wonderful to be back," Shore told emcee Mary Hart backstage. 

Shore is being honored for the score he composed for "Hugo." 

"For me, composition is ... a way to take things that I love and express them through music," Shore said as he accepted the award.

Read the full piece HERE.

As previously reported, Shore was on-hand last night to receive the Frederick Loewe Music Award for his work on Martin Scorsese’s Hugo.

Excerpted from THIS Hollywood Reporter article:

"Shore will be given the Frederick Loewe Music Award for his work on Martin Scorsese’s Hugo. He previously received the same award in 2005’s for composing the score for The Aviator. “Howard Shore is a master composer who has consistently delighted audiences of the more than 80 films that he has scored,” Matzner said. “In Hugo, the labyrinthine setting of a Paris railway station, where a young boy lives alone, doing what he must to survive, and the discovery of an aging filmmaker gifted with a second chance provide the perfect inspiration for Shore’s haunting score."