Music Categories
Original Score (Musical or Comedy):
Stephen Flaherty, Lynn Ahrens and David Newman for Anastasia [recorded on Atlantic 83064-2]
Hans Zimmer for As Good As It Gets
Anne Dudley for The Full Monte [recorded on RCA 09026-68904-2]
Danny Elfman for Men in Black [recorded on Columbia/Sony Music Sountrax CK68859]
James Newton Howard for My Best Friend’s Wedding [recorded on Work OK 68166]
Original Score (Drama):
John Williams for Amistad [recorded on Dream Works - Universal]See our review
Danny Elfman for Good Will Hunting
Philip Glass for Kundun [recorded on Nonesuch 79460-2] See our review
Jerry Goldsmith for L.A.Confidential [recorded on Varèse Sarabande VSD-5885] See our review
James Horner for Titanic [recorded on Sony SK 63213] See our review
***************************************************************************
The 70th Academy Awards Ceremony is on Monday 23rd March 1998
***************************************************************************
The 1997 Oscar Nominations and Winners (given in bold type):
Original Musical or Comedy Score: Emma, Rachel Portman;
The First Wives Club,Marc Shaiman; The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Alan Menken and Stephen Schwartz; James and the Giant Peach, Randy Newman; The Preacher’s Wife, Hans Zimmer.
Original Dramatic Score: The English Patient, Gabriel Yared;
Hamlet, Patrick Doyle; Michael Collins, Elliot Goldenthal; Shine, David Hirschfelder; Sleepers, John Williams
****************************************************************************
70th Academy Awards -1998
Our Tip for the OSCAR - JAMES HORNER for TITANIC
*****************************************************************************
James Horner has composed the music for a number of memorable films in the last two decades, winning three Grammys, five Oscar nominations and four Golden Globe nominations for his work. His most recent score, for writer James Cameron’s Titanic, was released by Sony Classical in late 1997. James Horner is best known for his scores for Apollo 13, Braveheart, Legends of the Fall and Aliens, and the song “Somewhere Out There” from An American Tail, all of which have won him Academy Award nominations. He also wrote scores for the recent releases: The Devil’s Own, Ransom, Courage Under Fire, To Gillian on Her 37th Birthday and The Spitfire Grill.
He is creating and will shortly record a symphonic work for orchestra and chorus built on themes from his Titanic score. This work will include additional music composed for Titanic that does not appear on the soundtrack recording (see review Sony SK 63213). Sony Classical also plans to record an original ballet score composed by Horner, who has written a number of concert works for orchestra.
The composer’s early interest in avant-gared musical techniques helped define his personal style, which often blends traditional harmonies and a conventional orchestral palette with the texture of ethnic instruments and even electronic sounds. Film scoring became an obvious choice for Horner, though he brings to it the perspective of the classical composer and conductor. “Films speak to me right away,” he commented. “The atmosphere, the overall mood dictates the kind of orchestra I will use. Watching a film the first few times, I make a charcoal sketch; later I put the colours in.” In recording his own film scores, Horner often creates his own orchestrations and prefers to conduct the orchestra directly to picture, instead of using click tracks or other mechanical timing devices.
Los Angeles-born Horner began writing for films in 1980, shortly after completing his doctorate in composition at UCLA, following earlier study at London’s Royal Academy of Music and the University of Southern California. Horner’s first assignment was the scoring of a short film entitled The Drought for the American Film Institute and it led to more work with AFI. He further developed his craft in the commercial arena at New World Pictures under the aegis of low-budget producer, Roger Corman. At New World Pictures, he also forged important long-term relationships with two emerging young directors - Ron Howard and James Cameron. His contrasting scores for Brainstorm and 48 Hours (which won him a Los Angeles Film Critics Association award) helped establish him as an important and versatile new film composer, just as the symphonic film score became popular again in the wake of John Williams’s music for the Star War films. Horner went on to compose scores for such films as: Casper, Clear and Present Danger, The Man Without a Face, Patriot Games, Sneakers, The Rocketeer, In Country, Honey I Shrunk the Kids, The Land Before Time, Willow, An American Tail, The Name of the Rose, Cocoon and Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.