Editor

The World Soundtrack Academy has just announced that world-class composers Angelo Badalamenti and Dario Marianelli will attend the 8th annual World Soundtrack Awards, the closing event for the 35th edition of the Ghent Film Festival (7-18 October 2008).

The 8th edition of the World Soundtrack Awards is once again promising to be the highlight of the year for soundtrack music fans. After the prestigious awards ceremony, the international elite of film music composers will be on hand to present a live performance of their music by the Flemish Radio Orchestra, conducted by Dirk Brossé. For this year’s edition, the World Soundtrack Academy, an initiative of the Ghent Film Festival, managed to bring Angelo Badalamenti and Dario Marianelli on board as its guests of honour.

Angelo Badalamenti is best known for his soundtrack work for American film director David Lynch. He has scored a number of Lynch projects including Blue Velvet (1986), Twin Peaks (1990), Wild at Heart (1990), Lost Highway (1997), The Straight Story (1999) and Mulholland Drive (2001). He also composed the music for La Cité des Enfants Perdus by Marc Caro and Jean-Pierre Jeunet (1995), Wait Until Spring Bandini (1989) by Dominique Deruddere, and Jeunet’s Un Long Dimanche de Fiançailles (2004), which earned him the WSA’s Composer of the Year award in 2005.

Badalamenti also collaborates with world-class entertainers including David Bowie, Michael Jackson, Paul McCartney, Julee Cruise and Marianne Faithfull. This year, Badalamenti will be bringing two special guests along to the concert in Ghent: Siouxsie Sioux from Siouxsie & The Banshees, and Beth Rowley, who will be performing songs from The Edge of Love, a biopic on Dylan Thomas starring Keira Knightley and Sienna Miller (autumn 2008 release).

Along with Badalamenti, the World Soundtrack Academy has also managed to recruit British composer Dario Marianelli. Marianelli has composed the soundtracks for The Brothers Grimm (2005), Pride & Prejudice (2005) and V For Vendetta (2005). His score for Atonement (2007) won him the Oscar as well as a Golden Globe for Best Original Score. He is currently working on the soundtrack for the upcoming film The Soloist by Joe Wright. This is his third time collaborating with Joe Wright, who also directed Pride & Prejudice and Atonement. In 2006, Marianelli received a Soundtrack Composer of the Year nomination for his Pride & Prejudice score, but lost out to Alberto Iglesias and his score for The Constant Gardener.

In addition to the works of Angelo Badalamenti and Dario Marianelli, the Flemish Radio Orchestra will also be performing music by Daniel Tarrab and Andrés Goldstein, winners of the World Soundtrack Discovery Award in 2007. There will also be a forum for new Belgian music talent with the annual composition competition for young composers, where candidates are asked to compose music for a clip from Raoul Servais’ Atraksion. The complete programme as well as the nominations for the 2008 World Soundtrack Awards will be announced in August.