Daniel Robert Elfman is an American composer, singer, and songwriter. He came to prominence as the singer-songwriter for the new wave band Oingo Boingo in the early 1980s. Since the 1990s Elfman has garnered international recognition for composing over 100 feature film scores, as well as compositions for television, stage productions, and the concert hall.
Music is the art of arranging sounds in time to produce a composition through the elements of melody, harmony, rhythm, and timbre. It is one of the universal cultural aspects of all human societies. General definitions of music include common elements such as pitch, rhythm, dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture. Different styles or types of music may emphasize, de-emphasize or omit some of these elements. Music is performed with a vast range of instruments and vocal techniques ranging from singing to rapping; there are solely instrumental pieces, solely vocal pieces and pieces that combine singing and instruments. The word derives from Greek μουσική ; see § Etymology and glossary of musical terminology.
Nobuo Uematsu is a Japanese musician and composer, best known for his contributions to the Final Fantasy video game series by Square Enix. A self-taught musician, he began playing the piano at the age of twelve, with English singer-songwriter Elton John as one of his biggest influences. Uematsu joined Square in 1986, where he first met Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi. The two later worked together on many titles at the company, most notably in the Final Fantasy series. After nearly two decades with Square, Uematsu left in 2004 to create his own production company, which included the Dog Ear Records music label. He has since composed music as a freelancer for other games, including ones developed by Square Enix and Sakaguchi's development studio, Mistwalker.
John Towner Williams is an American composer, conductor, pianist and trombonist. In a career that has spanned nearly seven decades, he has composed some of the most popular, recognizable, and critically acclaimed film scores in cinematic history. Williams has won 25 Grammy Awards, seven British Academy Film Awards, five Academy Awards, and four Golden Globe Awards. With 52 Academy Award nominations, he is the second most-nominated individual, after Walt Disney. His compositions are considered the epitome of film music. In 2005, the American Film Institute selected Williams's score to 1977's Star Wars as the greatest film score of all time. The Library of Congress also entered the Star Wars soundtrack into the National Recording Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
Incidental music is music in a play, television program, radio program, video game, or some other presentation form that is not primarily musical. The term is less frequently applied to film music, with such music being referred to instead as the film score or soundtrack.
A film score is original music written specifically to accompany a film. The score comprises a number of orchestral, instrumental, or choral pieces called cues, which are timed to begin and end at specific points during the film in order to enhance the dramatic narrative and the emotional impact of the scene in question. Scores are written by one or more composers, under the guidance of, or in collaboration with, the film's director or producer and are then usually performed by an ensemble of musicians – most often comprising an orchestra or band, instrumental soloists, and choir or vocalists – known as playback singers and recorded by a sound engineer.
Dimitri Zinovievich Tiomkin was a Russian-born American film composer and conductor. Classically trained in St. Petersburg, Russia before the Bolshevik Revolution, he moved to Berlin and then New York City after the Russian Revolution. In 1929, after the stock market crash, he moved to Hollywood, where he became best known for his scores for Western films, including Duel in the Sun, Red River, High Noon, The Big Sky, 55 Days at Peking, Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, and Last Train from Gun Hill.
VNV Nation is an Irish alternative electronic project led by Ronan Harris in the roles of singer, songwriter, and producer.
Pachelbel's Canon is an accompanied canon by the German Baroque composer Johann Pachelbel in his Canon and Gigue for 3 violins and basso continuo. It is sometimes called Canon and Gigue in D or Canon in D. Neither the date nor the circumstances of its composition are known, and the oldest surviving manuscript copy of the piece dates from the 19th century.
Michael Arnold Kamen was an American composer, orchestral arranger, orchestral conductor, songwriter, and session musician.
Michael Tilson Thomas is an American conductor, pianist and composer. He is currently the artistic director of the New World Symphony, an American orchestral academy based in Miami Beach, Florida. He is also Music Director Laureate of the San Francisco Symphony and Conductor Laureate of the London Symphony Orchestra.
Crossover is a term applied to musical works or performers who appeal to different types of audience. This can be seen, for example, when a song appears on two or more of the record charts which track differing musical styles or genres. If the second chart combines genres, such as a "Hot 100" list, the work is not a crossover.
Ali Akbar Khan was an Indian Hindustani classical musician of the Maihar gharana, known for his virtuosity in playing the sarod. Trained as a classical musician and instrumentalist by his father, Allauddin Khan, he also composed numerous classical ragas and film scores. He established a music school in Calcutta in 1956, and the Ali Akbar College of Music in 1967, which moved with him to the United States and is now based in San Rafael, California, with a branch in Basel, Switzerland.
Michael Moran is an English musician, songwriter and record producer.
Thomas Z. Shepard is an American record producer who is best known for his recordings of Broadway musicals, including the works of Stephen Sondheim. Shepard is also a composer, conductor, music arranger and pianist.
Mark Mancina is an American film score composer, musician, arranger, and producer. A veteran of Hans Zimmer's Media Ventures, Mancina has scored over sixty films and television series including Speed, Bad Boys, Twister, Tarzan, Training Day, Brother Bear, Criminal Minds, Blood+, and Moana.
Sense and Sensibility is the original soundtrack of the 1995 film of the same name starring Emma Thompson, Alan Rickman, Hugh Grant, Kate Winslet and Tom Wilkinson. The original score was composed by the Scottish composer Patrick Doyle, a friend of Thompson's who had worked with her on many previous films. Director Ang Lee tasked Doyle with creating a gentle score reflecting the emotional suppression of the society featured in the film. Doyle subsequently created a score which he described as "suppressed" with "occasional outbursts of emotion", in keeping with the film's storyline.
Over the course of its history, the Batman franchise has generated a wide variety of music produced in connection with both live-action and animated television series, and with the many Batman films.
Rondeau fantastique sur un thème espagnol: "El Contrabandista", S. 252, is a classical musical composition for piano solo by Franz Liszt, written in 1836, and published in 1837 as Liszt's Opus 5 No. 3. It is based on a Spanish song popular at that time. It lasts approximately 8–9 minutes according to the high tempo Liszt assigned, though most pianists play it slower due to its incredible difficulty.
Nicholas Britell is an American composer, pianist, and film producer based in New York City. He has scored both of Barry Jenkins' studio films, Moonlight (2016) and If Beale Street Could Talk (2018), both of which received nominations for Best Original Score at the Academy Awards. He has also worked with Adam McKay, scoring his two most recent films, The Big Short (2015) and Vice (2018). The HBO original series Succession (2018–present) marked Britell's entry into television. Britell scored every episode of the first and second season, earning the Emmy Award for Outstanding Original Main Title Theme Music and the Hollywood Music in Media Award for Best Original Score – TV Show/Limited Series. His score for the second season of Succession was nominated in 2020 for the Emmy Award for Outstanding Music Composition for a Series.
