WaterTower Music To Release Soundtrack For 'Sherlock Holmes' On December 22, 2009

LOS ANGELES (Top40 Charts/ WaterTower Music) - Sherlock Holmes Original Motion Picture Soundtrack will be released digitally by WaterTower Music on December 22, 2009. Additionally, a CD version of the soundtrack will be available on January 12, 2010. Each CD version of the soundtrack will offer fans a free download of the soundtrack in 5.1 Surround Sound. The music was produced by Hans Zimmer and Lorne Balfe. The score, composed by Zimmer, was recently nominated by the Broadcast Film Critics Association for a Critics' Choice Award for Best Score. 'Sherlock Holmes' opens nationwide on December 25, 2009.

Between now and the release of the film, people who buy 'Sherlock Holmes' movie tickets through www.fandango.com or www.movietickets.com will get a free download of an exclusive song through iTunes.

'Sherlock Holmes' marks the first collaboration between Hans Zimmer and director Guy Ritchie. Ritchie sought out Zimmer after hearing his inventive score for 'The Dark Knight,' and Zimmer, a longtime fan of both Ritchie's work and Arthur Conan Doyle's fiction, welcomed the opportunity. 'This story has so many textures and personalities, that it really gave us the opportunity to create a diverse language of music for the film,' said Zimmer, adding that the music had to 'capture the different tones of the worlds Holmes and Watson navigate, ranging from the halls of Parliament to a bare-knuckle boxing ring to the shadowy crypts beneath a cathedral.'

Zimmer created those distinctive worlds with Irish fiddles, gypsy violins, Hungarian cimbaloms and Argentinean bandoneons. The soloists Zimmer chose for this included Ann Marie Calhoun, Tina Guo, Davey Johnstone, Aleksey Igudesman, and Diego Stocco on a triple-neck double-bass he himself built.

Zimmer contrasted an opulent-sounding chamber orchestra with these soloists and a Salvation Army Brass Band,,infusing Doyle's orderly, Victorian world with the unorthodox. As Zimmer says of this experience, 'It was such a joy to work with Guy to capture the different tones.'