George Fenton has written the music for over one hundred feature films and has collaborated with some of the most influential film makers of the late 20th century - he talks to Movies & Musicals on RTÉ lyric fm above.
His film scoring as a professional composer began in 1982 with Richard Attenborough's biopic Gandhi - with his collaborator, Ravi Shankar - a score that was nominated for the Academy Award for best Original Score. Fenton went on to write another four film scores for Attenborough's films, most notably Shadowlands and Cry Freedom. He has also frequently worked with the theatre and film director Nicholas Hytner, including the scores for The Madness of King George, The Crucible and The Lady in the Van.
Indeed many of the films George Fenton has scored have been the result of long-lasting relationships with directors, such as Ken Loach on The Wind that Shakes The Barley, Jimmy's Hall, I, Daniel Blake and Sorry We Missed You, with Stephen Frears on Dangerous Liasons and Mrs Henderson Presents, Nora Ephron on You’ve Got Mail, Terry Gilliam on The Fisher King and many many more.
Fenton’s impressive CV has seen him delve brilliantly too into the world of natural history writing TV scores for the likes of The Blue Planet and Frozen Planet.
Many of these scores are celebrated in a new way on the newly released album entitled The Piano Framed - themes by George Fenton arranged and performed by Simon Chamberlain. This new album features a selection of new solo piano arrangements of film and television themes composed by Fenton, including Shadowlands, The Blue Planet, Dangerous Liaisons, You’ve Got Mail, Groundhog Day and The Lady in The Van, all arranged and performed by one of London’s most sought after pianists, Simon Chamberlain.
On Movies & Musicals, Aedín Gormley talks to George about his approach to film scoring, collaborating with such a variety of great directors and the process of arranging a selection of his scores for solo piano for this new release.
Movies and Musicals, RTÉ lyric fm, Saturdays from 1 pm - listen back here.
