The International Film Music Critics Association (IFMCA) announced the IFMCA Award 2022 nominees on February 9. Musical scores from genre films and television appear up and down the ballot, and composer Bear McCreary leads the field with eight nominations.

McCreary’s nominations are for his work on the epic Amazon Prime television series The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power based on the classic fantasy writings of J.R.R. Tolkien; the animated comedy Paws of Fury: The Legend of Hank, which is a re-imagining of the classic 1970s comedy Blazing Saddles; the epic video game God of War: Ragnarök; and for his continuing outstanding contributions to the most recent of TV series such as Outlander, See, The Serpent Queen, The Walking Dead, and The Witcher: Blood Origin. The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power received nominations for Score of the Year – the first television score nominated in that category in IFMCA history since the rule change to allow TV scores to be included was announced in 2022 – plus Best Television score, and for three different tracks in the Composition of the Year category, while McCreary himself was nominated for Composer of the Year.

The nominees for Best Original Score For A Fantasy/Science Fiction/Horror Film are:

• Avatar: The Way Of Water, music by Simon Franglen
• Crimes of the Future, music by Howard Shore
• Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, music by Danny Elfman
• Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore, music by James Newton Howard
• Jurassic World: Dominion, music by Michael Giacchino

The International Film Music Critics Association will announce the winners of the 19th IFMCA Awards on the IFMCA YouTube channel on February 23.

The complete nominee list follows the jump.

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The International Film Music Critics Association (IFMCA) today announced the winners of the 2021 IFMCA Awards for excellence in musical scoring.

The award for Score of the Year goes to composer Maurizio Malagnini, for his score for the unique fantasy-science fiction-ballet film Coppelia. The film stars members of the Dutch National Ballet and is an updated version of the original stage work by Léo Delibes, in which a pair of young lovers from a small European town must save their home from an evil interloper intending to use the townspeople’s ‘essence’ to give life to a robotic creation. The score was also named Best Original Score for a Fantasy/Sci-Fi/Horror Film.

James Newton Howard was named Composer of the Year, having written acclaimed music for two films in 2021, Jungle Cruise and Raya and the Last Dragon. Jungle Cruise was also named Best Score for an Action/Adventure/Thriller film, while Raya and the Last Dragon was named Best Score for an Animated film.

Several more scores of genre works are among the winners listed below:

FILM SCORE OF THE YEAR

• COPPELIA, music by Maurizio Malagnini

FILM COMPOSER OF THE YEAR

• JAMES NEWTON HOWARD

BREAKTHROUGH COMPOSER OF THE YEAR

• OSCAR MARTÍN LEANIZBARRUTIA

FILM MUSIC COMPOSITION OF THE YEAR

• “Arachnoverture” from SPIDER-MAN: NO WAY HOME, music by Michael Giacchino

ROBERTO ASCHIERI SPECIAL AWARD

• NICK REDMAN

KYLE RENICK SPECIAL AWARD

• WEST SIDE STORY

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE FOR A DRAMA FILM

• THE CURSE OF TURANDOT, music by Simon Franglen

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE FOR A COMEDY FILM

• CRUELLA, music by Nicholas Britell

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE FOR AN ACTION/ADVENTURE/THRILLER FILM

• JUNGLE CRUISE, music by James Newton Howard

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE FOR A FANTASY/SCIENCE FICTION/HORROR FILM

• COPPELIA, music by Maurizio Malagnini

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE FOR AN ANIMATED FEATURE

• RAYA AND THE LAST DRAGON, music by James Newton Howard

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE FOR A DOCUMENTARY

• TALE OF THE SLEEPING GIANTS [TUNTURIN TARINA], music by Panu Aaltio

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE FOR TELEVISION

• MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE: REVELATION, music by Bear McCreary

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE FOR A VIDEO GAME OR INTERACTIVE MEDIA

• RATCHET & CLANK: RIFT APART, music by Mark Mothersbaugh and Wataru Hokoyama

BEST NEW ARCHIVAL RELEASE – RE-RELEASE OR RE-RECORDING

• THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANK, music by Alfred Newman; album produced by Nick Redman, Mike Matessino, and Neil S. Bulk; liner notes by Julie Kirgo; album art direction by Jim Titus (La-La Land)

BEST NEW ARCHIVAL RELEASE – COMPILATION

• THE FILM SCORES OF BERNARD HERRMANN, music by Bernard Herrmann; album produced by Tony d’Amato, Gavin Barratt, Raymond Few, and Tim McDonald; liner notes by Tom Schneller; album art direction by Matt Read (Decca)

FILM MUSIC RECORD LABEL OF THE YEAR

• LA-LA LAND RECORDS, MV Gerhard and Matt Verboys

The International Film Music Critics Association (IFMCA) announced the IFMCA Award 2021 nominees on February 3. The musical scores from genre films appear up and down the ballot, with composers James Newton Howard and Hans Zimmer leading the field with the greatest number of nominations, four apiece.

Howard’s nominations are for his work on two films: Jungle Cruise, is based on the popular Disney theme park ride; and the animated fantasy Raya and the Last Dragon, which follows the adventures of a young girl in an alternate universe version of South East Asia, as she tries to save her family by hunting for a mythical dragon. Jungle Cruise is nominated for Score of the Year and Best Action/Adventure/Thriller Score, Raya and the Last Dragon is nominated for Best Animation Score, and Howard is nominated for Composer of the Year.

Zimmer’s nominations are for his work on Dune, based on the novel by Frank Herbert, and the 25th James Bond film No Time to Die. Dune is nominated for Score of the Year and Best Fantasy/Sci-Fi/Horror Score, No Time to Die is nominated for Best Action/Adventure/Thriller Score, and Zimmer is nominated for Composer of the Year.

The nominees for Best Original Score For A Fantasy/Science Fiction/Horror Film are:

• Coppelia, music by Maurizio Malagnini
• Dune, music by Hans Zimmer
• Ghostbusters: Afterlife, music by Rob Simonsen
• The Green Knight, music by Daniel Hart
• Spider-Man: No Way Home, music by Michael Giacchino

The International Film Music Critics Association will announce the winners of the 18th IFMCA Awards LIVE on the IFMCA YouTube channel on February 17.

The complete nominee list follows the jump.

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The International Film Music Critics Association (IFMCA) announced the IFMCA Award 2020 nominees on February 4.

British composer Daniel Pemberton and German composer Hans Zimmer lead the field with the most number of nominations, each receiving a total of five.

Pemberton’s nominations include his work on the literary adventure Enola Holmes, based on the popular young adult novels by Nancy Springer about the younger sister of the legendary sleuth Sherlock. IFMCA member James Southall called Enola Holmes “a great orchestral adventure romp, whose quirks only add to its great sense of fun … conventional by recent Pemberton standards but still features a number of quirks and it feels so continually fresh and energetic … one of the year’s strongest scores”.

Zimmer’s five nominations were all for his work on Wonder Woman 1984. The score is nominated for Score of the Year and in its Fantasy/Sci-Fi/Horror genre, Zimmer is nominated for Composer of the Year, and two of Zimmer’s individual cues – “1984” and “Themyscira” – are nominated for Film Music Composition of the Year. IFMCA member Jon Broxton praised the score’s “upbeat attitude, its buoyant sense of fun and optimism, and the unashamed, un-ironic sincerity of its emotional content,” and said that “the depth and complexity of Zimmer’s thematic ideas makes the score satisfying from an intellectual point of view, meaning that the whole thing succeeds on every count.”

Also nominated for both Score of the Year and Composer of the Year is British composer Christopher Willis, for scoring the Dickensian literary comedy The Personal History of David Copperfield. The other nominees for Score of the Year are The Call of the Wild by British composer John Powell and Fukushima 50 by Japanese composer Tar? Iwashiro.

The other nominees for Composer of the Year are Federico Jusid and Bear McCreary. Argentine composer Jusid is nominated for his work on several scores across multiple genres, including the Spanish super-hero themed serial killer thriller Orígenes Secretos (also nominated in its genre). American composer McCreary’s work in 2020 includes the animated film Animal Crackers (also nominated in its genre), the horror-thrillers Fantasy Island and Freaky, and several prestigious continuing television dramas such as Outlander, The Walking Dead, Snowpiercer, and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Several composers are receiving their first ever IFMCA Award nominations this year, among them Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross, and Jon Batiste (SOUL, Animation), Laura Karpman and Raphael Saadiq (Lovecraft Country, Television), and Shigeru Umebayashi (Ghost of Tsushima, Game).

The International Film Music Critics Association will announce the winners of the 17th IFMCA Awards on February 18.

The nominee list follows the jump.

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The International Film Music Critics Association (IFMCA) today announced its nominees for excellence in musical scoring in 2019, for the 16th annual IFMCA Awards. For the first time in IFMCA history a female composer leads the field, with Icelandic composer and cellist Hildur Gudnadóttir receiving five separate nominations for her work on the critically acclaimed comic-book drama Joker, and for the HBO television series Chernobyl. These are the first nominations for Gudnadóttir, who is nominated in the categories for Film Score of the Year, Composer of the Year, Drama Score, Television Score, and Film Music Composition of the Year. (Note: Gudnadóttir is spelled here with a Latin “d” because WordPress doesn’t support the correct character.)

Also nominated for both Score of the Year and Composer of the Year are veteran composers Alexandre Desplat, Thomas Newman, and John Williams.

American Thomas Newman receives his nominations mostly for his work on director Sam Mendes’s epic World War I action-drama 1917, however, he also scored the biopic Tolkien, which is another WWI movie, albeit one that specifically looks at the wartime experiences of the author of The Lord of the Rings.

The legendary John Williams, who turns 88 next week, wrote the final installment in the Star Wars saga, The Rise of Skywalker, and in doing so completed a 40-year film music project spanning nine movies that may never be equaled in the history of cinema. The score is also nominated for Fantasy/SciFi/Horror Score and Film Music Composition of the Year. Williams has three prior IFMCA Score of the Year wins, for Star Wars: The Force Awakens in 2015, War Horse in 2011, and Memoirs of a Geisha in 2005.

The fifth nominee for Score of the Year is Englishman John Powell’s “How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World,” the third and final entry in the series of well-loved animated films based on the novels by Cressida Cowell. Powell previously won the IFMCA Score of the Year awards in 2018 for Solo and in 2010 for the original How to Train Your Dragon.

The fifth nominee for Composer of the Year is American composer Bear McCreary, who wrote music for an astonishing six films and four television series in 2019. The most lauded of these are Godzilla: King of the Monsters, which is nominated in the Fantasy-SciFi-Horror category, and The Professor and the Madman, which is nominated in the Drama category.

The International Film Music Critics Association will announce the winners of the 16th IFMCA Awards on February 20, 2020.

The full list of nominees follows the jump.

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The International Film Music Critics Association (IFMCA) announced the winners of the 2018 IFMCA Awards on February 21.

Score of the Year goes to British composer John Powell for his score for the Star Wars spin-off story Solo, which looked at the early life of the legendary rogue and intergalactic smuggler Han Solo. IFMCA members Asier Senarriaga and Óscar Giménez called Solo “a spectacular score that combines the classic ideas of Williams with the talent of Powell,” while IFMCA member Jon Broxton – speaking about the score’s multitude of recurring character themes – said that the way Powell “incorporates all the thematic complexity into his score is masterful, but best of all is the way he allows them to develop organically; this is not just a rigid leitmotif score where mathematics trumps emotion. Instead, Powell engages in sensible and appropriate development, meaning that when the emotional outbursts do come, they pack a real wallop, and satisfy both the heart and the brain in equal measure.”

The Solo score is also named Best Original Score for a Fantasy/Science Fiction/Horror Film, while John Williams’s contribution to the score, the standalone piece “The Adventures of Han,” is named Film Music Composition of the Year. These are the seventh and eighth IFMCA Award wins of Powell’s career; he previously won the Score of the Year award for How to Train Your Dragon in 2010.

James Newton Howard is named Composer of the Year, and takes home the award for Best Original Score for an Action/Adventure/Thriller Film for his work on the controversial Jennifer Lawrence Cold War spy thriller Red Sparrow. His 2018 work also included the second Harry Potter spinoff film Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, and the lavish fantasy The Nutcracker and the Four Realms.

British composer Amelia Warner is named Breakthrough Composer of the Year for her enormously impressive mainstream debut work scoring the literary drama based on the life of the groundbreaking horror author Mary Shelley.

In the non-film categories, composer Christopher Lennertz wins the award for Best Original Score for a Television Series for Lost in Space, while composer Bear McCreary wins the award for Best Original Score for a Video Game or Interactive Media for the action adventure game “God of War”.

Burbank, California-based La-La Land Records is named Film Music Record Label of the Year in recognition of their ongoing excellence in restoring and releasing the most beloved film scores of the past. Acclaimed album producer Mike Matessino receives both Archival Awards: one for his work restoring and releasing John Williams’s classic score for the 1979 Frank Langella version of Dracula on the Varèse Sarabande label, and one for his work in putting together the lavish box set of John Williams’s three Harry Potter scores – Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban – for La-La Land Records. Producer Robert Townson shares the award for Dracula, and album artist Jim Titus worked on both releases.

FILM SCORE OF THE YEAR

• SOLO, music by John Powell

FILM COMPOSER OF THE YEAR

• JAMES NEWTON HOWARD

BREAKTHROUGH COMPOSER OF THE YEAR

• AMELIA WARNER

FILM MUSIC COMPOSITION OF THE YEAR

• “The Adventures of Han” from SOLO, written by John Williams

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE FOR A DRAMA FILM

• MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS, music by Max Richter

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE FOR A COMEDY FILM

• MARY POPPINS RETURNS, music by Marc Shaiman

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE FOR AN ACTION/ADVENTURE/THRILLER FILM

• RED SPARROW, music by James Newton Howard

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE FOR A FANTASY/SCIENCE FICTION/HORROR FILM

• SOLO, music by John Powell

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE FOR AN ANIMATED FILM

• MAX AND ME, music by Mark McKenzie

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE FOR A DOCUMENTARY

• TIDES OF FATE, music by Pinar Toprak

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE FOR A TELEVISION SERIES

• LOST IN SPACE, music by Christopher Lennertz

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE FOR A VIDEO GAME OR INTERACTIVE MEDIA

• GOD OF WAR, music by Bear McCreary

BEST ARCHIVAL RELEASE – NEW RELEASE OR NEW RECORDING OF AN EXISTING SCORE

• DRACULA, music by John Williams; album produced by Mike Matessino and Robert Townson; liner notes by Mike Matessino; art direction by Jim Titus (Varèse Sarabande)

BEST ARCHIVAL RELEASE – COMPILATION

• HARRY POTTER: THE JOHN WILLIAMS SOUNDTRACK COLLECTION; music by John Williams; album produced by Mike Matessino; liner notes by Mike Matessino; art direction by Jim Titus (La-La Land)

[Based on a press release. Thanks to Steve Vertlieb for the story.]