{"id":4100,"date":"2014-10-26T14:00:33","date_gmt":"2014-10-26T14:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/?p=4100"},"modified":"2015-04-19T14:30:01","modified_gmt":"2015-04-19T14:30:01","slug":"tearful-francis-lai-acclaimed-at-world-soundtrack-awards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/?p=4100","title":{"rendered":"Tearful Francis Lai acclaimed at World Soundtrack Awards"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Francis<\/a><\/p>\n

By Ray Bennett<\/p>\n

GHENT, Belgium \u2013 Oscar-winning French composer Francis Lai, 82, was visibly moved by a prolonged standing ovation after he accepted a Lifetime Achievement Award on Saturday night at the 14th World Soundtrack Awards.<\/p>\n

Fellow French composer Bruno Coulais presented the prize to Lai in the audience where he listened with evident delight to a performance of his film scores by the Brussels Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Dirk Bross\u00e9.<\/p>\n

At a press conference earlier in the day, the man who won the Academy Award and Golden Globe for best original score for \u201cLove Story\u201d in 1971, said that he became a film composer by accident. He started out as a songwriter and only when Claude Lelouch asked him for a couple of songs for \u201cA Man and a Woman\u201d (1966) did he work in feature films.<\/p>\n

\u201cClaude was so pleased that he replaced some of the dialogue with my music,” Lai said with remembered astonishment. The film won\u00a0 two Oscars for original screenplay and best foreign-language film in 1967 and Lai\u2019s film scoring career was launched.<\/p>\n

\"Francis<\/a><\/p>\n

Concert highlights included the indelible song from \u201cA Man and a Woman\u201d performed by Clara Cleymans and Helmut Lotti, Lai\u2019s original piano arrangement of the theme from \u201cLove Story\u201d and several cues from \u201cBilitis\u201d with vocalist Joke Cromheecke. Lai said earlier that he believes romantic songs will always play a role in movies: \u201cThey will always exist because emotional communication is so important.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alexandre Desplat, who has been a Gent regular, could not attend this year but he sent amusing videos by way of thanks for his two awards. He was named Composer of the Year for his prodigious output that included scores for \u201cGodzilla\u201d, \u201cMarius\u201d, \u201cPhilhomena\u201d, \u201cThe Monuments Men\u201d, \u201cVenus in Fur\u201d and \u201cZulu\u201d.<\/p>\n

Somewhat surprisingly, Desplat\u2019s splendid score for \u201cThe Grand Budapest Hotel\u201d, which will almost certainly figure in awards for this year, also was included and it won him the prize for best original film score over Oscar- and Bafta-award winner Steven Price\u2019s remarkable music for \u201cGravity\u201d.<\/p>\n

The young British composer, who has followed up with a sumptuous score for the Brad Pitt war picture \u201cFury\u201d, took it with good grace as he said that established stars Desplat, John Williams and Thomas Newman had been more than gracious when he beat them to the Academy Award.<\/p>\n

\"Winners<\/a>

Winners take the stage at the WSA 2014<\/p><\/div>\n

British composer Daniel Pemberton was on hand to accept his award as Discovery of the Year for his scores for \u201cThe Counselor\u201d and \u201cCuban Fury\u201d while Gabriel Yared appeared to announce that Pharrell Williams had won the award for best song for \u201cHappy\u201d from \u201cDespicable Me 2\u201d while Michelino Bisceglia won the public choice prize for his music in \u201cMarina\u201d.<\/p>\n

French composer Cyril Molesti won the Saban Award for the most original composition by a young European composer in a competition that had 45 submissions. The challenge was to compose a cue to replace one by Nino Rota for a clip from Federico Fellini\u2019s \u201c8\u00bd\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Ray Bennett GHENT, Belgium \u2013 Oscar-winning French composer Francis Lai, 82, was visibly moved by a prolonged standing ovation after he accepted a Lifetime Achievement Award on Saturday night at the 14th World Soundtrack Awards. Fellow French composer Bruno … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,8,9],"tags":[314,2235,2223,2221,2218,2217,2222,2220,2188,1248],"class_list":["post-4100","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-film","category-music","category-news","tag-alexandre-desplat","tag-bruno-coulais","tag-cyril-molesti","tag-daniel-pemberton","tag-francis-lai","tag-gent","tag-michelino-bisceglia","tag-pharrell-williams","tag-steven-price","tag-world-soundtrack-awards"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4100","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4100"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4100\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7293,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4100\/revisions\/7293"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}