About the Music

The music Brussels Philharmonic will perform tonight was composed by our three special guests. Composer and jazz artist Mark Isham is our guest of honour. Not only will you enjoy some of the most wonderful pieces from his repertoire, he will also take the stage himself. Bruno Coulais will receive this year’s World Soundtrack Lifetime Achievement Award for his impressive career, as you will be able to judge for yourself. And furthermore, Brussels Philharmonic will perform the music of last year’s Discovery of the Year winner, which gives us the pleasure to listen to the work of Nainita Desai, who returns this year as Public Choice Award nominee.

Mark Isham

American composer and jazz artist Mark Isham has been a well-respected name in the upper echelons of Hollywood for decades. His inimitable scores – influenced by jazz and electronic music – have earned him accolades including Grammy and Emmy Awards, and Oscar and Golden Globe nominations.

Born in New York and a student of piano and violin, Mark Isham fell in love with the trumpet. The composer has built an impressive career, collaborating with jazz legends as Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock and Bobby McFerrin, and filmmakers such as Robert Altman, Werner Herzog, Irwin Winkler, William Friedkin, Paul Haggis, Sidney Lumet, Alan Rudolph, Gavin O’Connor, Jodie Foster and Kathryn Bigelow.

Honoured in jazz, electronic and new age genres, Isham is best known for his much-praised music for Michael

During the WSA concert we have the honour to host the performance world premiere of the music from Judas and the Black Messiah and The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent. The trumpet solos will be performed by Mark Isham himself. • Born on 7 september 1951 in New York • Plays the piano and violin, but falls in love with the trumpet • Makes his debut in 1983 with a score for Disney's Never Cry Wolf (1983) • Oscar nomination for Best Original Music with A River Runs Through It (1992)

Apted’s Nell (which earned him a Golden Globe nomination), Oscar winner Crash, Brian De Palma’s The Black Dahlia and Robert Redford’s A River Runs Through It for which he received both an Oscar and a Grammy nomination.

“I am very grateful to be honoured by the WSA this year. This is such a highly respected organisation which does so much to support and promote the art of film composition. It will be a great treat to perform and take part in all of the events.” — Mark Isham

Bruno Coulais

Lifetime Achievement Award

French composer Bruno Coulais has steadily built an impressive career in film music since the late seventies with his highly recognisable lyrical and imaginative scores, which often give away his taste for opera and the human voice. 1996 proved to be a turning point in his career, receiving universal acclaim for his score for the unique nature documentary Microcosmos, produced by Jacques Perrin, with whom Coulais frequently collaborated. They worked together on the hit film Les choristes (2005) for which Coulais and director Christophe Barratier received an Oscar nomination for Best Song.

In 2009, Coulais scored his first major English-language features. He wrote the music for the stopmotion film Coraline by Henry Selick (Coulais’ first American studio film) and he started collaborating with the Irish animation studio Cartoon Saloon and its founder Tomm Moore. Together with the Irish band Kíla, he provided the score for the much-praised folklore trilogy The Secret of Kells (2009), Song of the Sea (2014) and Wolfwalkers (2020).

© LEBRUMAN • Born on 13 January 1954 in Paris • Composed film music for the first time in 1977 for México Mágico • Breakthrough in 1996 with his score for

Microcosmos • Oscar nomination for Best Song with "Vois sur ton chemin" (2005, Les choristes)

“By collaborating with filmmakers from a wide variety of backgrounds, by ricochet I think I have discovered a lot about myself. It helped me to progress, to explore territories that were not naturally mine.” — Bruno Coulais

Nainita Desai

Discovery of the Year 2021

Winner of the World Soundtrack Discovery of the Year Award 2021, Nainita Desai has rapidly become one of the most indemand composers for drama and documentary alike after being named Breakthrough Brit at the 2016 BAFTAs and dazzling worldwide audiences with her restrained score of the Oscarnominated For Sama (2019). Born and raised in London to Indian parents, Desai already mastered five instruments as a child and went on to study mathematics, music technology and sound design. She began her career as a sound designer, working on films for Bertolucci and Herzog, but moved on to composing for screen. Desai is quickly building a distinctive oeuvre, with scores for - among others - Sundance favourite The Reason I Jump, BAFTA-nominated documentary American Murder, ITV series The Tower, as well as Netflix hit 14 Peaks and video game Telling Lies. She is twice Emmy nominated, winner of an Ivor Novello, BIFA, Cinema Eye Honours nominee, and the IFMCA Breakthrough Composer of 2020.

• Born 1998 in London to Indian parents • Plays the sitar, piano, guitar, tabla, violin and sings • Gained fame with For Sama (2019) • In 2016 was named a BAFTA Breakthrough Brit

“I’m incredibly excited to return to Ghent this year. A major highlight for me will be the utter privilege to hear my music brought to life by the Brussels Philharmonic.” — Nainita Desai