Elliot Goldenthal

Elliot Goldenthal is a truly unique voice in film music, having a challenging, complex, operatic, and often wild style. Goldenthal trained under renowned composers Aaron Copland and John Corigliano, and the influence of the latter in particular can be heard in his work. He has a fondness for experimental orchestration, unconventional playing styles, aleatoric passages, and wailing, trilling French horns. Augmenting the technical precision and compositional mastery of his scores, Goldenthal also injects ample doses of powerful emotion, with an emphasis on darkness balanced by grandiloquent finales. In this way, Goldenthal is analogous to Danny Elfman, but while Elfman's darkness leans towards sadness, Goldenthal's tends toward anger. His wife is flamboyant film and theater director Julie Taymor, known for films such as Titus and Frida and a Tony winner for her direction of Disney's Lion King stage show. In late 2005, Goldenthal was involved in a bizarre accident that nearly killed him: he was leaning back in a chair at home and hit his head, suffering severe head trauma. Thankfully, he was able to recover, and has done a few film scores since then. Goldenthal scored a few films in the '80s and early '90s, most notably Pet Sematary, but David Fincher gave him his first big film assignment with Alien 3. Goldenthal composed a score for the Alien franchise equaled only by Goldsmith's classic score for the original. It was in this score that Goldenthal established many of his trademarks, from whooping horns and tortured brass to skittering string arpeggios and brutal percussion. He has scored many films for director Neil Jordan, including Interview with the Vampire, Michael Collins, The Butcher Boy, and The Good Thief. He has also scored Taymor's Titus, Frida, and The Tempest. The first is a wildly eclectic score merging dark choir, furious orchestral action, metal grunge, swinging jazz, and techno. The second is a Spanish-flavored score that netted Goldenthal an Academy Award, despite (or maybe because of) its more conventional writing. The last showed Goldenthal's facility with using electric guitars and electronics in a musically interesting manner, something also displayed in his scores for Michael Mann's Heat and the action film SWAT. Goldenthal has done extensive work in theater, has composed an opera called Grendel based on the legend of Beowulf, and written an oratorio called Fire Water Paper, dedicated to the victims of the Vietnam war. Goldenthal's film output has slowed lately, but hopefully filmmakers will continue to recognize and use his considerable talents.

Alien 3**

Batman Forever

Batman and Robin
Cobb

Demolition Man

Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within**

Fire Water Paper* (Concert Work)

Frida
The Green Bird
Grendel (Opera)

Heat

In Dreams

Interview with the Vampire
Jabberwocky (Single)

Michael Collins*
A Midsummer Night's Dream
Othello Symphony
Pet Sematary

Public Enemies

S.W.A.T.*
Sphere
The Stone Cutters and Early Chamber Works
Symphony in G# Minor*

The Tempest

Titus**