OSCAR-winning film composer Ennio Morricone, who took the Academy Award for ‘Best Original Score’ at last night’s ceremony, is to play a concert at Blenheim Palace, it has been revealed this morning.
The Italian, who picked up the accolade for his soundtrack to Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight, joins Elton John and The Corrs as a headliner for the Woodstock stately home’s Nocturne series of outdoor shows in June.
The concert, in the palace’s Great Court, will be his first ever UK performance outside of London and, will open the series on Thursday June 23.
Morricone is among cinema’s best known and most prolific film composers, selling more than 70 million albums and writing more than 500 scores -including the soundtracks to such classic movies as The Mission, Cinema Paradiso and Spaghetti Westerns The Good, The Bad and the Ugly and Once Upon a Time in the West.
Last night’s Oscar followed an Academy Award for “magnificent and multifaceted contributions to the art of film music” in 2007.
His Blenheim date will see him conducting a 200-strong orchestra and choir, peforming well-known tunes from his extensive career.
He said: “Performing my work live for people of so many different ages and cultural backgrounds is an incredibly gratifying experience.
“This year I celebrate my professional career of 60 years, during which I composed over 600 works.”
He added: “I will perform a whole new program with new highlights, which I am already working on. Of course there will always be the classic pieces from the great Sergio Leone westerns and The Mission. But overall the experience will be different this time.
“I plan to include music from my collaboration with Quentin Tarantino as well as a few works from the Leone Westerns that I have not included on previous tours”
The Palace’s Nocturne series was launched last year, with sell-out concerts by pianist Ludovico Einaudi and singer-songwriter Van Morrison.
Tickets for Ennio Morricone start at £45 and go on general sale on Thursday at 9am.
VIP packages are available, including fine dining in Sir Winston Churchill’s Long Library.
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