The composers Alexandre Desplat and Marvin Hamlisch will be the guests of honour at the 9th World Soundtrack Awards, the key event of the 36th Ghent Film Festival on Saturday 17 October in Music Centre De Bijloke in Ghent. The Brussels Philharmonic will be playing music from The Girl with the Pearl Earring, The Queen, The Painted Veil and Lust Caution among others. The American composer Marvin Hamlisch, who created unforgettable music for films such as The Way We Were and The Sting, will receive the World Soundtrack Lifetime Achievement Award.
The presentation of the World Soundtrack Awards and the accompanying concert of film music is an annual highpoint for lovers of film music. The international film music world will be there in Ghent to hear the best film music of the moment performed live by the Brussels Philharmonic. This year the programme will include music by Alexandre Desplat and Marvin Hamlisch.
Desplat is part of the new class of French film music composers and made his reputation in 2003 with the soundtrack for The Girl with the Pearl Earring. This was followed by impressive scores for films that included Birth, Syriana, The Queen and The Painted Veil. He won the Golden Globe in 2007 for the soundtrack of the latter. The same year he was named Film Composer of the Year at the 7th World Soundtrack Awards. On Saturday 17 October, the Brussels Philharmonic, under the direction of Alexandre Desplat himself, will perform the music from The Girl with the Pearl Earring, The Queen, The Painted Veil and Lust Caution.
In addition to Alexandre Desplat, the American composer Marvin Hamlisch will also take the spotlight. He will receive a World Soundtrack Lifetime Achievement Award for the contributions he has made during his rich career. Hamlisch is a much-lauded composer and arranger who has composed music for films, musicals and television. He won three Oscars, two for The Way We Were by Sydney Pollack with Barbra Streisand and one for the music for The Sting by George Roy Hill with Paul Newman. Hamlisch also wrote the music for the James Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me and for the famous musical A Chorus Line. Together with composer Richard Rodgers he is the only artist to have won an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar, a Tony and a Pulitzer Prize. Other winners of the World Soundtrack Lifetime Achievement Award include Angelo Badalamenti, Mikis Theodorakis, Peer Raben, Maurice Jarre, Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, Alan & Marilyn Bergman, Sir George Martin and Elmer Bernstein.
Young film music talent is also represented with the composer Marc Streitenfeld who carried off the World Soundtrack Discovery Award last year with his soundtrack for American Gangster by Ridley Scott. The Brussels Philharmonic under the direction of Dirk Brossé will also play music by the winner of the first composition competition organised by the World Soundtrack Academy for young European composers with the support of Sabam.
The complete programme and the nominations for the World Soundtrack Awards 2009 will be announced in August. The number of tickets for the presentation of the World Soundtrack Awards are limited. Mail to info@filmfestival.be for more info.