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Ennio Morricone music biography continued...

trumpeter. Morricone began studying music at Rome's Conservatory of Santa Cecilia at the age of 12. Urged to concentrate on composition by his instructors, he supported himself by playing trumpet in jazz bands, and then worked for Italy's national radio network after graduating from the conservatory. Morricone began composing film scores in the early '60s, and though his first films didn't make much of an impact, Morricone's arrangement of an American folk song intrigued director and former schoolmate Sergio Leone. Leone hired Morricone and together they created a distinctive score to accompany Leone's different version of the Western, A Fistful of Dollars (1964). He would go on to compose all of Leone's spaghetti westerns, including A Fistful of Dollars (1964), For a Few Dollars More (1965), The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966) and Once Upon a Time in the West (1968), as well as The Great Silence (1968), and My Name Is Nobody (1973). By the 1970s, Morricone was winding down his involvement with both Leone and the spaghetti Western, working with numerous other directors all over the world. Age never slowed Morricone. In the 80s, 90s, and 00s, he worked with top fight directors like Pedro Almodovar, Brian DePalma, Roman Polanski, Mike Nichols, Oliver Stone, and Barry Levinson. His film compositions during these years included scores for Once Upon A Time In America (1984), The Mission (1986), The Untouchables (1987), Cinema Paradiso (1988), Lolita (1997) and Fateless (2005), reflecting his position as one of the most in demand film composers ever.



It has been estimated that Morricone has composed and arranged scores for more than 500 film and television productions. From 1979 to 1992, he won five Anthony Asquith Awards for Film Music by BAFTA. During the years 1979-2001 he was nominated for five Academy Awards for Best Music, Original Score. Although he did not win any of them, Morricone received the Honorary Academy Award in 2007 "for his magnificent and multifaceted contributions to the art of film music". He was the second composer to receive this award after its introduction, the ultimate tribute to his talent.