New York, NY (Top40 Charts) Milan Records today debuts two new videos featuring composers
Dustin O'Halloran and Volker Bertelmann each in a solo piano performance of score tracks from their Ammonite (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) -
Dustin O'Halloran perform "Fossils" and Volker Bertelmann perform "Post." The new performance videos arrive following the November debut of the soundtrack, which features music written by the duo for director Francis Lee's critically-acclaimed film starring
Kate Winslet and Saoirse Ronan. Available everywhere now, the nine-track album continues a fruitful creative partnership between O'Halloran and Bertelmann, who previously teamed on the Academy® Award, BAFTA, and Golden Globe® Award-nominated score for 2016's Lion, A Christmas Carol and more. Following its world premiere at the 2020 Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), Ammonite is available to watch on VOD now from NEON.
Of the soundtrack, composers O'Halloran and Bertelmann say, "Writing music for Ammonite was a smooth and natural process. We already knew from director Francis Lee's previous work this would be a score full of emotion and restraint. Because the film is a period piece, it also meant finding a tone and instrumentation that would work in this world. The overall length of music recorded is somewhat shorter than our other scores; therefore, we used many natural sounds, so when the pieces arrive, it feels meaningful. We decided for a small chamber group of strings and piano as our palette and worked from there. Francis's original idea was to find a single piece of music playing in parts and come to a full suite at the end. In some ways, this was how we approached it, save for a few moments of score specific to the scene. We found the strong acting that both Kate and Saoirse brought meant we needed to offer space, and try not to overstep. The last piece of music in the film, during the museum scene, represented a full understanding of the emotions that played out between the two characters."
Ammonite tells the story of acclaimed self-taught paleontologist Mary Anning, who works alone on the wild and brutal Southern English coastline of Lyme Regis in the 1840s. The days of her famed discoveries behind her, she now hunts for common fossils to sell to rich tourists to support herself and her ailing widowed mother. When one such tourist, Roderick Murchison, arrives in Lyme on the first leg of a European tour, he entrusts Mary with the care of his young wife Charlotte, who is recuperating from a personal tragedy. Mary, whose life is a daily struggle on the poverty line, cannot afford to turn him down but, proud and relentlessly passionate about her work, she clashes with her unwanted guest. They are two women from utterly different worlds. Yet despite the chasm between their social spheres and personalities, Mary and
Charlotte discover they can each offer what the other has been searching for: the realization that they are not alone. It is the beginning of a passionate and all-consuming love affair that will defy all social bounds and alter the course of both lives irrevocably.
AMMONITE (ORIGINAL MOTION PICTURE SOUNDTRACK) TRACKLISTING:
Fossils
Strong Enough
Dig
Leave
Boat
Post
Beach
End
Aria -
Peter Gregson
Dustin O'Halloran is an American pianist and composer with four acclaimed solo albums under his own name, and is a member of the band A Winged Victory for the Sullen with Adam Wiltzie. He released his first EP for renowned classical musical label Deutsche Grammophon in 2019, with a new album currently in the works, and A Winged Victory For The Sullen released their latest album, The Undivided Five, on
Ninja Tune the same year.
O'Halloran's film career began with
Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette (2006), and since then he's worked on multiple films and TV shows, including Like Crazy (2011) and Breathe In (2013), directed by
Drake Doremus and both starring Felicity Jones. He also scored Marc Turtletaub's Puzzle (2018), for whose closing song he collaborated with veteran Scandinavian chart-topper Ane Brun, and
George Tillman Jr.'s critically acclaimed The Hate U Give (2018).
He's the winner of a 2015 Emmy Award for his main title theme to Amazon's comedy drama
Transparent (2014-2017), and was nominated for an Oscar, a Golden Globe, a BAFTA and a Critics Choice Award for his score to Lion (2016), written in collaboration with Volker Bertelmann (aka Hauschka). He also collaborated with Bertelmann to score A Christmas Carol (2019) starring Guy Pearce, Ammonite (2020) starring
Kate Winslet and Saoirse Ronan, and The Old Guard (2020) starring Charlize Theron. Other collaborations include with Bryan Senti on the Sky TV series Save Me (2018-).
In addition, he worked as a producer for Katy Perry's song 'Into Me You See' from her 2017 album, Witness, and appears on Leonard Cohen's 2019 posthumous album, Thanks For The Dance.
O'Halloran lives in Los Angeles and Reykjavik.
Volker Bertelmann is an internationally acclaimed pianist, composer and experimental musician. His score for Garth Davis' film Lion, which he composed in collaboration with
Dustin O'Halloran, was nominated for an Academy Award, for a Golden Globe, a Critics' Choice Awards, and a BAFTA's in the Best Score/Best
Music categories respectively. Bertelmann's projects include Your Honor (starring Bryan Cranston), Summerland, Patrick Melrose, Gunpowder, Adrift, the upcoming Stowaway and in collaboration with
Dustin O'Halloran: The Art of Racing in the Rain, The Old Guard, and Ammonite (starring
Kate Winslet and Saoirse Ronan). Bertelmann, who in his solo work goes by the name Hauschka, is renowned both for his trademark sound, which he achieves by preparing the piano with various small objects, and his ability to improvise entire performances. He has produced over twenty albums and EPs.
