Daniel Pemberton was named Film Composer of the Year at the World Soundtrack Awards on Saturday, capping a prolific run that includes “Project Hail Mary,” “The Drama,” “The Bad Guys 2” and “Masters of the Universe.” The British composer has now won three times at the Ghent-based ceremony, taking the top prize in 2021 and Discovery of the Year in 2014.
For “Project Hail Mary,” Pemberton mined the unfamiliar for universal resonance, experimenting with wood, metal and glass and even drawing inspiration from a friend’s leaky faucet. “It was a case of throwing every crazy idea we could into the score, but at the same time, it had to be really emotional,” he said at a roundtable shortly before the closing ceremony. “I spent a lot of time trying to make people cry.”
Fresh off their Academy Award win, pop star EJAE and songwriter Mark Sonnenblick took Best Original Song for the “KPop Demon Hunters” chart-topper “Golden.” The win adds to a haul that includes a Golden Globe, a Grammy and a David Guetta remix. The winners, however, were not on hand to collect.
Speaking to Variety last year, EJAE pushed back against labels. “As an artist, I don’t want myself to be boxed into being a ‘K-pop’ artist because I don’t really view myself as a K-pop artist or a pop artist,” she said. “I view myself as a songwriter of every genre.”
Among the night’s other honorees, Jeff Russo won Television Composer of the Year for “Alien: Earth,” “Cape Fear” and “Citadel”; Kevin Smithers took the Public Choice Award for the Mexican stop-motion feature “Soy Frankelda”; and Northern Irish composer Hannah Peel (“Midwinter Break”) won Discovery of the Year.
Smithers is developing a new, musical stop-motion feature with “Frankelda” directors Arturo and Roy Ambriz, while Peel is now scoring Netflix’s series adaptation of “Assassin’s Creed.”
Russo’s music for “Cape Fear” and “Alien: Earth” both emphasized dread — all while drawing on the legacies of Bernard Herrmann, James Horner and Jerry Goldsmith. In “Cape Fear,” for instance, Russo incorporated themes from Herrmann’s original 1962 score.
“That made my job both easier and much harder,” Russo said. “I had to figure out how Herrmann writes harmonically so the two scores could sound sympathetic and live together.”
On “Alien: Earth,” he drew on the contrasting approaches of Goldsmith, who played up dread in “Alien,” and Horner, whose “Aliens” music leaned toward militarism and action. Russo looked more for inspiration, lifting few specific themes, save for a delayed horn motif from Goldsmith’s original. “I thought it was fun [for franchise aficionados to recognize the easter egg]. We’re all here to have fun, right?”
Conductor Dirk Brossé and the Brussels Philharmonic certainly did — enlivening the closing gala with performances of selected music by guest of honor Hildur Guðnadóttir and lifetime achievement award recipient Trevor Jones, both of whom were on hand for the show.
The program included themes from “28 Years Later: The Bone Temple,” “Tár,” “Joker,” “The Dark Crystal,” “The Last of the Mohicans” and “Notting Hill.” At one point, Guðnadóttir even grabbed her cello to accompany the orchestra onstage.
Courtesy of Ben Croll
Full list of winners below:
Film Composer of the Year:
Daniel Pemberton – “Project Hail Mary,” “The Drama,” “The Bad Guys 2,” “Masters of the Universe”
Television Composer of the Year:
Jeff Russo – “Alien: Earth,” “Cape Fear,” “Citadel” (Season 2)
Best Original Song:
“Golden” from “KPop Demon Hunters” – written by Kim Eun-jae, Mark Sonnenblick, Joong Gyu Kwak, Yu Han Lee, Hee Dong Nam, Jeong Hoon Seo, Teddy Park; performed by Huntrix
Discovery of the Year:
Hannah Peel – “Midwinter Break”
Public Choice Award:
Kevin Smithers – “Soy Frankelda”
Game Music Award:
Nicolas Garcia – “Cthulhu: The Cosmic Abyss”
Belgian Film Composer of the Year (Powered by Sabam):
Margaret Hermant – “A La Cara: Mallorca Confidencial”
Award for the Best Original Composition by a Young Composer (Powered by Vienna Synchron Stage):
Xabier Doural García
Lifetime Achievement Award:
Trevor Jones