February 17, 2022
International Film Music Critics Association Announces Winners Of 2021 IFMCA Awards
The International Film Music Critics Association (IFMCA) announces its list of winners for excellence in musical scoring in 2021, in the 2021 IFMCA Awards.
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 is also named Best Original Score for a Fantasy/Sci-Fi/Horror Film. These are the second and third IFMCA Awards of Malagnini’s career, him having previously won the Breakthrough Film Composer of the Year award in 2015.
James Newton Howard is named Composer of the Year, having written acclaimed music for two films in 2021. JUNGLE CRUISE is an old-fashioned action adventure starring Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt, and is based on the popular Disney theme park ride. RAYA AND THE LAST DRAGON is an animated film 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 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. These are Howard’s eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth career IFMCA wins. He previously won the Score of the Year award for “Lady in the Water” in 2006, and was named Composer of the Year in 2018.
Composer Oscar Martín Leanizbarrutia is named Breakthrough Composer of the Year for his sensationally beautiful score for CLARET, a Spanish-language biopic of the 19th century Catholic archbishop and missionary Antonio María Claret.
The various other genre awards are won by: Simon Franglen for the Chinese-language historical drama THE CURSE OF TURANDOT, Nicholas Britell for his score examining the comedic origins of the popular Disney villain CRUELLA, and Panu Aaltio for the spellbinding Finnish nature documentary TUNTURIN TARINA (Tale of the Sleeping Giants). In the non-film categories Bear McCreary is honored for his score for the dynamite animated television series MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE: REVELATION, Kevin Smith’s direct sequel to the beloved 1980s He-Man cartoon show; and Mark Mothersbaugh and Wataru Hokoyama win the video game score award for RATCHET & CLANK: RIFT APART, Insomniac Games’s sixteenth instalment in the massively popular Ratchet & Clank series of games.
Other awards include the new the Roberto Aschieri Special Award, which goes to an individual who has made an important and long-lasting contribution to the art and preservation of film music over a career, which this year was awarded to the late Nick Redmon, an Oscar-nominated documentary filmmaker and the co-founder of the Twilight Time video label, who was best known to the film music industry as an award-winning soundtrack producer; the newly renamed the Kyle Renick Special Award went to the WEST SIDE STORY music team: conductor Gustavo Dudamel, arranger David Newman, song and vocal producer Jeanine Tesori, and music consultant John Williams, whose work with Leonard Bernstein’s original music and Stephen Sondheim’s original lyrics brought a 60-year old story roaring back to contemporary relevance. Producers Michael Matessino, Nick Redman, and Neil S. Bulk received the Archival Award for their new release of Alfred Newman’s score for the 1959 drama THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANK, which features the original soundtrack album, along with the world premiere presentation of the film score, and additional bonus music cues. In the Compilation category, the award has gone to “The Film Scores of Bernard Herrmann,” a compilation of classic Bernard Herrmann scores, and California-based La-La Land Records and their executive owners MV Gerhard and Matt Verboys, was named Film Music Record Label of the Year for the 8th time, in recognition of their outstanding series of expanded re-releases and re-recordings which in 2021 included titles such as the aforementioned THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANK, James Horner’s GLORY, John Williams’s ALWAYS, and Dimitri Tiomkin’s IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE.
For the full details on the 2021 winners and further details, see IFMCA
