The University welcomes the Music Department's Honorary Professor of Film Music, the distinguished film composer George Fenton to present a Colloquium on 15 March, along with Professor Mervyn Cooke.
George Fenton began composing professionally in the mid-1970s for theatre productions by (amongst others) the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre. His early work with playwright Alan Bennett on Forty Years On (1968) and with Peter Gill at London’s Riverside Studios led to numerous commissions for BBC TV where, in addition to other Bennett productions, he wrote signature tunes for all the regular BBC news bulletins (including the One O’Clock News, Six O’Clock News, Nine O’Clock News, Newsnight and BBC Breakfast) and several popular drama series (Bergerac, Shoestring, The Monocled Mutineer). Fenton’s later scores for BBC Natural History productions achieved a new high standard for the genre, utilizing full orchestra and choir. The Blue Planet (2001) won Ivor Novello, BAFTA and Emmy awards for Best Television Score, while Planet Earth (2006) was awarded an Emmy and a Classical Brit. The phenomenal popularity of these wildlife scores resulted in live touring performances with major orchestras, including the Berlin Philharmonic and Philharmonia, featuring large-screen HD projections of the BBC footage and presented (under George’s baton) at diverse venues ranging from regional concert halls to the Hollywood Bowl.
George’s film-composing career has included a sustained collaboration with the late director Richard Attenborough, for whom he composed the Oscar-nominated score for Gandhi (1981). He later received Oscar nominations for his music to Attenborough’s Cry Freedom (1987), and for Dangerous Liaisons (1988) and The Fisher King (1991). Some of his best known scores are those for Memphis Belle (1990), Groundhog Day (1993), Shadowlands (1993), The Madness of King George (1994), The Crucible (1996), You’ve Got Mail (1998), Sweet Home Alabama (2002), Valiant (2004), Stage Beauty (2004) and Hitch (2004). He recently composed the music for Terry Gilliam’s The Zero Theorem (2013) and Alan Bennett’s The Lady in the Van (2015). Alongside his steady output of scores for mainstream productions in both the US and UK, George has continued to work extensively with the independent British director Ken Loach.
Everyone is welcome to attend the colloquium.
Alexandre Gagatsis will take the follow-up PCF for UG dissertation and MA students on Thursday 17 March at 4pm in the Arts Centre Lecture Theatre.