The 2017 IFMCA Award winners

INTERNATIONAL FILM MUSIC CRITICS ASSOCIATION ANNOUNCES WINNERS OF 2017 IFMCA AWARDS; “PHANTOM THREAD” TAKES SCORE OF THE YEAR, MULTIPLE WINS FOR MICHAEL GIACCHINO, BENJAMIN WALLFISCH

http://filmmusiccritics.org/2018/02/ifmca-award-winners-2017/

FEBRUARY 22, 2018 — The International Film Music Critics Association (IFMCA) announces its list of winners for excellence in musical scoring in 2017, in the 2017 IFMCA Awards.

The award for Score of the Year goes to British composer Jonny Greenwood for his score for critically acclaimed period drama PHANTOM THREAD, directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, and starring Daniel Day-Lewis.

The 30th Sammy Film Music Awards

Composer, author and International Film Music Critics Association (IFMCA) member Roger Hall has compiled the winners of the 30th Annual Sammy Film Music Awards (SFMA) and they have been recently published by AmericanMusicPreservation.com.

Aimed at highlighting film music recordings and their presentation on CD, this year’s SFMA categories include “Best New Film Score On CD”, “Best New Film Song On CD”, best releases of film scores from the ‘Golden Age’, ‘Silver Age’ and ‘Bronze Age’, and the preservation film music award for “Best Film Music Compilation”.

http://www.americanmusicpreservation.com/sammys2018.htm

IFMCA Award Nominations for 2017 have been announced

Hot on the heels of our own announcement of the winners of the 2017 Reel Music Awards, the International Film Music Critics Association (IFMCA) has announced the nominations for its 14th annual IFMCA Awards.

Each year the association celebrates excellence in musical scoring of film, television and video games. This year is a particularly exciting year with numerous scores being recognised for particular acclaim. Alexandre Desplat, Daniel Pemberton, Michael Giacchino and John Williams have each received multiple nominations with John Williams – recently celebrating his 86th birthday – topping the number of nominations for new works in 2017 at an impressive six.

The full announcement and details of all the nominations can be found at the IFMCA’s website by following this LINK.

The IFMCA will announce the winners of the 14th Annual IFMCA Awards in February 22, 2018.

2017 Reel Music Awards – The Winners

2017 Reel Music Awards

2017 has been another excellent for music composed for film, television and games (as well as other categories). Composers for projects from the biggest industry projects right down to small, independent outfits have all taken advantages of the opportunities presented to them. This has made my job of selecting, what I believe to be some of the highlights of 2017 very difficult. This is something I say every year – thank goodness! – but it’s a good situation to be in.

I’ve found when looking back on my choices that dark, complex scores have been particularly well represented in the lists. These selections may not be to everyone’s taste but I hope that people reading this blog are reminded of some of their own favourites or even discover some new ‘gems’.

Basing my choices on a difficult-to-define mix of things such as how much of an emotional impact a work has, how the music works in the project for which it was written or how enjoyable the overall listening experience is, these lists reflect my own personal taste.

I do wonder whether singling out individual scores for praise when there’s so much wonderful music around is a good idea but, in the end, my goal is to highlight some of the best music being written for film, television and games (and beyond).

2017 Reel Music Awards – The Nominations

2017 Reel Music Awards

It’s that time of the year where Reel Music takes a look back at the year just passed to celebrate some of the ‘stand-out’ scores of 2017. As with 2016, I thought 2017 was another good year for film, television and videogame music. From the major Hollywood blockbusters through to the more modest low budget endeavours, there was a high level of quality in the music being composed and hopefully my Reel Music Award nominations highlights some of the great music on offer.

Over the course of the year I have been giving numerical values to all of the scores that I have listened to and making a few notes to act as memory jogs for this end-of-year summary. Towards the end of 2017 I began a review process to shortlist my stand-out lists. The titles listed below are my Top 10* titles that I have enjoyed most and are divided into a number of different categories. It’s difficult to articulate the decision process for choosing the various scores: there’s no formal mechanism, it’s how the music makes me feel both as a separate listening experience and – if I am lucky – how the music sits within the medium for which it was written. As with previous years, many worthy titles have, unfortunately, had to be put to one side and don’t feature in my selections: the nominations for the documentary and videogame categories were particularly difficult to choose.

2017 Reel Music Awards – 2017 scores for consideration

2017 Reel Music Awards

As part of the lead up to the nominations and winners of my stand-out scores of 2017 I thought that I would take some time to list all the titles of movies, TV shows and games released during the course of the year that I have assessed during this time. There’s such a wide range of ways to listen to music nowadays in addition to hearing it in the medium for which it was written, and the lists below have been accessed via a range of different ways: for example, as heard in the medium for which it was written, on CD, as a digital download or via a streaming service.

The main reason for listing all these scores is so that, if anyone is curious, you can see the range of titles assessed. Also, my lists may highlight some titles that you may have previously thought were unavailable to listen to.

The 2017 Reel Music Awards nomination lists will be posted soon!

The 2016 IFMCA Award winners are…

INTERNATIONAL FILM MUSIC CRITICS ASSOCIATION ANNOUNCES WINNERS OF 2016 IFMCA AWARDS; “ARRIVAL” TAKES SCORE OF THE YEAR, JUSTIN HURWITZ AND “LA LA LAND” WINS THREE OTHERS

http://filmmusiccritics.org/2017/02/ifmca-winners-2016/

FEBRUARY 23, 2016 — The International Film Music Critics Association (IFMCA) announces its list of winners for excellence in musical scoring in 2016, in the 2016 IFMCA Awards.

The award for Score of the Year goes to Icelandic composer Jóhann Jóhannsson for his work on the critically acclaimed science fiction drama ARRIVAL, directed by Denis Villeneuve, starring Amy Adams and Jeremy Renner. IFMCA member Jon Broxton said that “Jóhannsson’s approach to solving the film’s musical problems [is] absolutely fascinating, and the way he was able to musically convey some of the film’s more challenging cerebral ideas involving language and communication is astonishingly accomplished,” while IFMCA member Daniel Schweiger said that Jóhannsson “brilliantly captures both a sense of wonder and fear with beholding the mind-boggling, verbally-scrambled unknown, as whale cry motifs join with alternately moaning and chattering voices, backed by a strong orchestral sound that serves as a powerful universal musical translator in a way that’s both harmonically understandable, and profoundly strange.” This is the first IFMCA Award win of Jóhannsson’s career, him having previously been nominated for Best Original Score for a Drama Film for THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING in 2014.