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Simon Boswell

 
Wikipedia: Simon Boswell
Simon Boswell
Born March 10, 1956 (1956-15-10) (age 52)
Origin London, UK
Genres Film scores
Occupations film score composer, conductor, musician, producer
Website http://www.simonboswell.com/

Simon Boswell (b. October 15th, 1956) is a BAFTA nominated British film score composer, conductor, producer and musician, with more than 90 credits to his name. He is known for combining mainly electronic elements with orchestral.

Contents

Biography

Boswell studied English Literature at Pembroke College, Cambridge. Already an accomplished guitarist and whilst still at college, he was signed by Transatlantic Records in 1975. This resulted in his first solo album, ‘The Mind Parasites’, a collection of contemporary acoustic songs and instrumentals. In 1977, at the beginning of punk rock, he formed the band ADVERTISING. Labelled 'Power Pop', the band was more of an homage to the pop art style of Andy Warhol and the Velvet Underground. They toured extensively with Blondie. Following the demise of Advertising, Boswell became a record producer both in the UK and Italy. His production of Italian mega star Renato Zero is to this day the biggest selling Italian album of all time. Boswell’s record productions from the 1980s have influenced many contemporary musicians – notably the sample of the band 23 Skidoo's ‘Coup’ which became The Chemical Brothers' ‘Block Rockin' Beats’.

Film

Boswell's film career stretches back to 1985. He has been nominated twice for a BAFTA award, and has countless awards from around the world. Boswell has worked with many directors, including Danny Boyle, Michael Hoffman, Dario Argento, Clive Barker and Alejandro Jodorowsky. The films span a wide range of genres – Italian exploitation (PHENOMENA, STAGE FRIGHT), contemporary thrillers (SHALLOW GRAVE, HACKERS), horror flicks (LORD OF ILLUSIONS, HARDWARE), romances and character studies (JACK AND SARAH, THIS YEAR'S LOVE, BORN ROMANTIC), dramas (IN MY FATHER'S DEN, THE WAR ZONE, MY ZINC BED), fantasies (SANTA SANGRE, PHOTOGRAPHING FAIRIES, TIN MAN) and literary classics (A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM, COUSIN BETTE). He has also recently collaborated with many high profile artists on his projects, such as Elton John, Dolly Parton and Marianne Faithful. Established as a live performer as well as working in recording studio, he is accomplished with electronic and rock genres, combining these with epic orchestral scores.

Santo Subito is Boswell’s first project with the Vatican – a collaboration setting the speeches and the singing of Pope John Paul II to Boswell’s music and visuals.[1]

TV

Boswell has composed for BAFTA nominated TV series The Lakes, and collaborated with film-maker Brian Hill and poet Simon Armitage on “PORNOGRAPHY: THE MUSICAL” and “SONGBIRDS PORNOGRAPHY: THE MUSICAL and SONGBIRDS”.[1]

Music

Boswell has worked with musicians from bands such as Blur, Orbital, The Sex Pistols and Echo And The Bunnymen.

In Autumn 2006, his album ‘Close Your Eyes’ was released independently via his own Flick Records after 12 years of work.

“I cut up my previous scores into bits and re-assembled them as new songs mixing full orchestra with musicians from Blur and The Kills and spoken word parts for some of the actors and directors I have worked with along the way – including Ewan McGregor, Ray Winstone, Goran Visnij, Dario Argento and Alejandro Jodorowsky.”[1]

Art

Boswell continues to work on his own unique art project called BLINK!, an audio-visual installation of portraits extracted from news footage, looped to last forever, and individually scored with their own soundtracks. This was first exhibited at the ICA in London in 2002 on 4 simultaneous cinema-sized screens.[1]

Film credits

2008

  • My Zinc Bed
  • Bathory
  • Slapper
  • Rovdyr (aka Manhunt - English title)

2006

  • Free Jimmy

2005

2004

2003

  • Summer in the Golden Valley
  • The Sleeping Dictionary
  • Octane (with British electronica band Orbital)

2002

  • The White Darkness
  • Hypnotic
  • Alien Love Triangle

2001

  • The Secret Glory

2000

  • Born Romantic
  • There's Only One Jimmy Grimble
  • Circus

1999

  • Women Talking Dirty
  • The Debtors
  • A Midsummer Night's Dream
  • This Year's Love
  • The War Zone

1998

1997

1995

1994

1993

1992

1990

1989

1988

  • The Ogre
  • Dinner with a Vampire

1987

1986

1985

TV credits

2007

2006

  • Jackanory (2 episodes)
  • The Magician of Samarkand
  • Muddle Earth

2004

  • Sea of Souls (2 episodes)

2003

  • Pornography: The Musical

2002

  • Widows

2001

  • Mind Games

2000

  • Jason and the Argonauts

1999

1998

  • Killer Net

Other music credits

2004

  • In My Father's Den - Music Recordist

2003

  • Octane - Soundtrack Producer

1999

  • Women Talking Dirty - Music Arranger
  • The Debtors - Conductor

1998

  • Cousin Bette - Music Arranger and Producer

1994

  • Second Best - Music Arranger

1987

  • Fino alla morte (TV) - Music Arranger

References

External links


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