Program Notes

Andrea Morricone was born in 1964 into film-music royalty; his father was Ennio Morricone (b. 1928), who received a Lifetime Achievement Academy Award in 2007 in honor of a career that included scores for such films as Once Upon a Time in America and The Mission. Andrea was schooled at the Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome and went on to conduct a host of orchestras in Europe and the Americas. He has found a particular niche in film music, and has composed the scores for nearly twenty films, including Giuseppe Tornatore’s Cinema Paradiso (1988; its original Italian title was Nuovo Cinema Paradiso), the story of a filmmaker who recalls his boyhood and the beginnings of his passion for motion pictures in post-World War Two Sicily. The film won a Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language film in 1988 and an Academy Award as Best Foreign Language Film in 1989, while the score, jointly composed by Ennio and Andrea Morricone, was honored with Great Britain’s BAFTA Award. Andrea Morricone wrote the famous love-theme, which is performed in this concert.

—James M. Keller

(September 2018)