By Etan Rosenbloom, Associate Director & Deputy Editor, Communications & Media
We don't usually gush about music that hasn't been written yet here in Film Music Friday, but this week there was just too much good news about ASCAP members' upcoming scoring assignments to not report about them!
Quincy Jones Scoring The Butler
We learned from Variety this week that the incomparable Quincy Jones will be scoring The Butler, a biopic from director Lee Daniels (Precious) about a White House butler who served eight First Families. We can't help but expect great things from Jones, the composer of 33 film scores including the classic scores to In Cold Blood and The Color Purple. This announcement comes just a month after "Q" received the Founders Award at this year's ASCAP Rhythm & Soul Music Awards. Jones has also been honored with the ASCAP Henry Mancini Award for his film work. Look for The Butler in theaters in 2013.
Jan A.P. Kaczmarek Returns with The Time Being Score
When last we heard from Academy Award-winning ASCAP composer Jan A.P. Kaczmarek, he was helming the first annual Transatlantyk Festival in his native Poland. It's been a couple years since he's composed for the big screen, so we were pleased as punch to read on Film Music Reporter that he'll be scoring the indie mystery The Time Being, from writer/director Nenad Cicin-Sain. The film's producer Richard Gladstein previously worked with Kaczmarek on Finding Neverland, for which Kaczmarek took home the Oscar. The Time Being premieres at the 2012 Toronto Film Festival in September.
Javier Navarrete to Score Byzantium
Film Music Reporter reports that Javier Navarrete (SGAE) has been tapped to score the forthcoming Neil Jordan film Byzantium. Navarrete will give musical bite to the supernatural drama's two vampire protagonists, played by Saoirse Ronan and Gemma Arterton, who spend the film doing what vampires do in a sleepy English town. Navarrete may be best known for his Oscar and Grammy-nominated score for Pan's Labyrinth. He was recently nominated for his first Emmy for his music to the HBO drama Hemingway & Gellhorn.
Lucas Vidal Is on the jOBS
It's been a fruitful year for ASCAP composer Lucas Vidal. The young Spain native wrapped recording for the feature films The Raven and The Cold Light of Day in early 2012 (read our interview with him about them here), and was tapped for horror thrilled The Quiet Ones in June; late last month, he was invited to the International Film Music Festival in Córdoba as a special guest composer. Now Vidal's gotten his biggest assignment yet: jOBS, the upcoming biopic about Apple's visionary founder Steve Jobs. As Vidal told Film Music Reporter this week, his physical resemblance to jOBS star Ashton Kutcher isn't the only affinity the composer has with Apple and Steve Jobs.