Award-winning composer, Federico Jusid, is a multifaceted artist with many titles including concert pianist, conductor, and film and theater producer. He is best known for scoring the Academy Award-winning Best Foreign Language film, The Secret in Their Eyes, which Federico composed with Emilio Kauderer. Earlier this year, Federico completed the score for “This Is Us” creator Dan Fogelman’s drama, Life Itself, starring Olivia Wilde and Oscar Isaac. His other recent work includes scoring Spanish dramas such as, Loving Pablo, starring Javier Bardem and Penélope Cruz, A Twelve-Year Night and Ola de crímenes. Federico recently scored Netflix and BBC‘s re-imagining of the childhood classic, Watership Down. Federico’s orchestral score is accented by electronic sounds and metal instruments which reflect the…
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Interview…Ludwig Göransson Goes the Distance with ‘Creed II’
2018 has been a tremendous year for Swedish-born Ludwig Göransson. He’s composed music to five films released this year alone to say nothing of his TV and songwriting credits. A phenomenal musician, and, seemingly, the hardest working man in the business, he’s quick to shrug off the praise, but his output is as varied as it is prolific. Humbly, Göransson says that he’s focused in the studio, and puts in long hours, but doesn’t work all night long. However he gets it done, Göransson‘s work speaks for itself, and his projects truly run the gamut. Ryan Coogler’s Creed didn’t just surprise us, it knocked us out cold. In short, the Creed films…
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Interview…Film Music Composer Andrew Morgan Smith on the Score of ‘You Might Be the Killer’
Andrew Morgan Smith is a veteran film music composer who has scored over twenty feature film and television projects. In the last five years, he has scored more than forty-five projects across all media. He has also worked with and provided additional music for Nathan Furst, the composer of Act of Valor and Need for Speed. Smith studied film composition under composer David Newman (Tarzan, Ice Age, Galaxy Quest, The Sandlot), and orchestrator Jack Smalley (Last of the Mohicans, The Mothman Prophecies, The Limey) at the 2010 Aspen Music Festival. As a multi-instrumentalist, he was classically trained in both composition and music media at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. Smith…
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[Fantastic Fest Interview]…Director Adesh Prasad and Composer Jesper Kyd on ‘Tumbbad’
In the rural village of Tumbbad, young Vinayak has heard the stories of an ancient fortune held by his family for years, but is warned against attempting to attain the treasure lest he fall victim to the demon who guards it. He instead cares for his great-grandmother, a decrepit crone who must remain sated or her appetites might just claim them all. When she dies and he inherits the treasures housed inside a decaying estate, Vinayak discovers that they are not exactly what he expected, but instead an endless bounty protected by a vengeful and ravenous fallen god. While at Fantastic Fest 2018, we sat down with writer-director Adesh Prasad…
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Hans Zimmer to Receive Max Steiner Award During Hollywood in Vienna Gala
Hans Zimmer’s illustrious career has spanned over 150 film and television projects and encompasses about every genre and popular film franchise one can think about, from “Driving Miss Daisy” to “The Dark Knight” and from “The Lion King” to “Dunkirk”. Hollywood in Vienna CEO and Founder Sandra Tomek is proud to announce that Academy Award, Tony Award, 2-time Golden Globe and 3-time Grammy Winner Hans Zimmer will be honored with the 2018 Max Steiner Award in Vienna during the Annual Hollywood in Vienna Concert Gala. It is such an honor to be celebrated and receive this award – it lauds the contributions the composer has made to the industry and cements…
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Director Matt Schrader and Team Launch SCORE: The Podcast
A few years ago, we got to speak with Matt Schrader while he was in the thick of amassing his one-of-a-kind feature film, SCORE: A Film Music Documentary. While things were a work in progress, Schrader offered up plenty – everything from his love of film scores, the impetus for the doc as well as the staggering number of high-profile artists he had already sat with. Check out that insightful piece here. When the film finally hit theaters (during a very successful run on the film festival circuit and beyond), the doc was ever so much more than discerning, demanding and devout film score fans expected. For all involved, calling…
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Interview…Carl Thiel Composes Big Themes for Small Town Heroes in ‘Lazer Team 2’
Austin-based composer/musician Carl Thiel is a great friend of the site, and we love chatting with him about his film scores. An accomplished musician in his own right, Carl has made a name for himself working with Robert Rodriguez and on many films under the Troublemaker Studios banner and the El Rey Network. In past interviews, Carl has talked to us about doing work outside that umbrella s flexing his other musical muscles. Now you can take the man out of genre films, but you can’t take the genre film out of the man. As such, Carl is getting to try some new things with his score to Lazer Team 2, the…
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Interview…Aesop Rock Injects ‘Bushwick’ with Haunting, Gritty and Emotional Hip-Hop
Lakeshore Records recently released the original score to Bushwick, which was scored by underground hip-hop pioneer Aesop Rock. His first ever film score, Bushwick-Original Motion Picture Soundtrack is a mind-bending collection of instrumental tracks providing an exhilarating beat-heavy backdrop to the Cary Murnion and Jonathan Milott directed thriller starring Brittany Snow and Dave Bautista. Building on the rapping style of eccentrics Kool Keith and Del the Funky Homosapien, Aesop Rock (AKA Ian Bavitz) became one of the hottest MCs in the post-millennial underground. With seven albums, five Eps, production credits and appearances in film and television, Aesop has made an indelible cultural impression since the late ‘90’s. Rock is celebrated for his…
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Interview…Benjamin Wallfisch on the Strength of ‘Hidden Figures’, and the DNA of His Scores
Editor’s Note: This interview was originally published in March of this year. We have posted it again to coincide with the digital/Blu-Ray release of Gore Verbinski’s A Cure For Wellness on June 6. Golden Globe and Emmy nominee Benjamin Wallfisch is recognized as one of the leading film composers of his generation, with a career spanning over a decade and 60 feature films. He has composed music for such legendary film makers as Steven Spielberg, Rupert Wyatt, Gore Verbinksi and Lars von Trier, and has worked on scores that have been recognized with awards and nominations at the Academy Awards, BAFTAs and World Soundtrack Awards. Wallfisch fit us into his extremely…
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[DIFF Video Interview]…Matt Schrader Screens ‘SCORE: A Film Music Documentary’ at the Dallas International Film Festival
The 2017 Dallas International Film Festival brought many amazing films and documentaries to DFW, but few hit as close to home (musically speaking) as Matt Schrader‘s feature, SCORE: A Film Music Documentary. Schrader’s film profiles various personalities and titans in the industry to chronicle the history of film music, reaffirm its importance in our culture, and attempt to explain why certain scores continue to resonate decades later. I can honestly say I’ve been a music fan longer than I’ve been a film fan, and as such, forgive the pun, this doc was music to my ears. We spoke to Schrader in 2015 while he was in the middle of interviewing the composers for…
