IFMCA nominees

A few days ago the International Film Music Critics Association very quietly announced their nominees for 2013 (I don't know if they even issued a press release, as I haven't seen the news published anywhere but their official website). Since composers don't have a guild or trade society of their own, this is the closest we get to a precursor award just for movie music, but it doesn't always align with the Academy's taste.

This year, for instance, the top category of 'Film Score of the Year' is a real head-scratcher, featuring only one of the five Oscar nominees (probable winner Stephen Price for Gravity). Rounding it out is Howard Shore's swollen Hobbit score and three other soundtracks that I doubt were on anyone's award radar!

It looks like this might be Price's to lose, but he isn't the composer with the most nominations from this group. That distinction goes to Abel Korzeniowski, who has multiple scores recognized.

Check out the eclectic group of nominees after the cut.

Sunday Top Ten - Soundtracks by non-film composers

Although it can be proven that there are exceptions to the rule, a commonly accepted generality about the Academy is that its music branch is a highly insular clique, showing a persistent preference to established mainstays and often avoiding artists who don't work explicitly in the realms of film and television. But despite the fact that the music branch shies away from such composers, many filmmakers have welcomed their refreshing outsider take on movie music, especially so in the last decade. I thought I'd give a shout out to some of the finest film scores (yes, I'm including song scores as well) from musicians whose notoriety primarily stems from outside the relatively narrow niche of film scorers.

(Interesting side note: The Golden Globes are much more receptive to outsider musicians than AMPAS, having bestowed nine nominations upon the following ten scores compared to the Academy's two.)