Composer Elliot Goldenthal has crafted works for orchestra, theater, opera and film. His score for INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE won him both a Golden Globe and Oscar nomination and his innovative scores for 1995’s hit film BATMAN FOREVER and Michael Mann’s HEAT starring Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro won him Grammy nominations and a nomination for the Chicago Film Critics award respectively. He recently received the 1998 L.A. Film Critics Award for Best Original Score For a Written Motion Picture for his outstanding work on THE BUTCHER BOY.

His score for John Grisham’s A TIME TO KILL directed by Joel Schumacher received another Grammy nomination and his epic score for Neil Jordan’s MICHAEL COLLINS won him second nominations for an Oscar, a Golden Globe, and a Chicago Film Critics award for Best Original Score.

Goldenthal’s large scale symphonic piece, FIRE WATER PAPER, a commemorative tribute created for the 20th anniversary of the Vietnam War, commissioned by the Pacific Symphony Orchestra, was released in April 1996 on Sony Classical Records featuring soloist Yo Yo Ma.; The piece debuted at the Pacific Symphony Orchestra and later performed with Seiji Ozawa conducting the Boston Symphony Orchestra in critically acclaimed performances at Carneige Hall and at the Kennedy Center.

In 1988, Goldenthal was commissioned by ASCAP to compose a work in celebration of Leonard Bernstein’s 70 th birthday. The piece, Shadow Play Scherzo, was performed the Brooklyn Philharmonic Orchestra at Town Hall in New York City. Later that year, he was commissioned to compose a new work for the Haydn-Mozart chamber Orchestra commemorating the 75th anniversary of Ebbets Field. Titled Pastime Variations, it was performed at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

For his original collaboration with director Julie Taymor, Juan Darien: A Carnival Mass in 1988, the two received Obie Awards. The popular, critically acclaimed theatrical oratorio was based on the short story of Horacio Quiroga and the Requiem Mass. In 1996 a new version of Juan Darien opened the season at the Vivan Beaumont Theatre at Lincoln Center winning rave reviews as well as four Drama Desk and Five Tony nominations including Best Musical and Best Original Score.

Goldenthal’s other stage credits include the musical The Transposed Heads, based on Thomas Mann’s novella, performed at Lincoln Center Theater and the American Music Theater Festival in Philadelphia; The King Stag, at the America Repertory Theater; and the musical Liberty’s Taken produced at the Castle Hill Festival. Goldenthal has also composed incidental music for Shakespeare’s The Tempest, The Taming of the Shrew, Titus Andronicus and A Midsummer’s Night Dream.

He also collaborated with director Taymor on the highly successful limited New York engagement of the Carlo Gozzi fable The Green Bird which was presented by the Theatre For A New Audience at the New Victory Theatre in 1995 and was restaged at the La Jolla Playhouse during the summer of 1996.

Also on the classical side, Goldenthal has been commissioned by the American Ballet Theatre to create a new ballet of Othello which debuted at the Metropolitan Opera in May of 1997. Othello was co-produced by the ABT in partnership with the San Francisco Ballet and the Lar Lubovitch Dance Company and was choreographed by world renown choreographer Lar Lubovitch. The spectacular production which captures the epic emotion and sweeping drama of the great Shakespearean tragedy with a cast that has included ballet stars Desmond Richardson formally of the Alvin Alley American Dance Theatre as well as Jose Mauel Carreno, Julie Kent, Susan Jaffe and Sandra Brown. This will be a new addition to the ABT repertory and was one of the most acclaimed events of the 1997 dance season.

Goldenthal, a student of Aaron Copland and John Corigliano, earned both his Bachelor’s and Master’s Degree in musical composition at the Manhattan School of Music. He has written extensively for full orchestra as well as chamber and vocal compositions and is published by G. Schirmer. His Other awards include the Arturo Toscanini Award, the New Music for Young Ensembles composition prize, the Stephen Sondheim Award in Music Theater and a New York Foundation of the Arts Fellowship.

Goldenthal’s recent scores include Barry Levinson’s SPHERE starring Dustin Hoffman and Sharon Stone, Neil Jordan’s THE BUTCHER BOY starring Stephen Rea and newcomer Eamonn Owens (for which he won the Los Angeles Film Critics award for Best Score of the Year) and his fourth collaboration with Jordan - the DreamWorks thriller IN DREAMS starring Annette Benning, Aidan Quinn, Robert Downey Jr. and Stephen Rae which was released January 15th.

His other film scores include BATMAN & ROBIN, ALIEN 3, COBB starring Tommy Lee Jones, Gus Van Sant’s DRUGSTORE COWBOY and FOOL’S FIRE directed by Taymor for American Playhouse.

7/13/99