Carter Burwell

American composer of film scoresTemplate:SHORTDESC:American composer of film scores[[Category:**Script error: No such module "pagetype".** with short description]]**Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".****Expression error: Unexpected < operator.****Script error: No such module "SDcat".**

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**Carter Benedict Burwell** (born November 18, 1954) is an American composer of film scores. He has consistently collaborated with the Coen brothers, having scored most of their films, including *Blood Simple*, *Raising Arizona*, *Fargo*, *The Big Lebowski*, *No Country For Old Men*, *Burn After Reading*, *Hail, Caesar!* and *The Ballad of Buster Scruggs*. Burwell has also scored three of Todd Haynes's films, three of Spike Jonze's films, and all the films of Martin McDonagh. He has received Oscar nominations for Best Original Score for Haynes's *Carol* (2015) and McDonagh's *Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri* (2017).

## Early life and education

Burwell was born in New York City, the son of Natalie (née Benedict), a math teacher, and Charles Burwell, who founded Thaibok Fabrics, Ltd. He graduated from King School in Stamford, Connecticut with George Hofecker and other notables and Harvard College, where he was a cartoonist for *The Harvard Lampoon*.

## Career

As a film composer, Burwell has had a long-working relationship with the Coen brothers, providing music for every film they have made (except for *O Brother, Where Art Thou?* and *Inside Llewyn Davis*, which had folk music soundtracks produced by T-Bone Burnett). Among his best known film scores are *Miller's Crossing* (1990), *And the Band Played On* (1993), *Conspiracy Theory* (1997), *Hamlet* (2000), *The Spanish Prisoner* (1997), *Before the Devil Knows You're Dead* (2007), *In Bruges* (2008), *Twilight* (2008), *Where the Wild Things Are* (2009), *The Blind Side* (2009), and *Breaking Dawn - Part 1* (2011) and *Part 2* (2012). Burwell wrote and recorded the original score for the film *The Bourne Identity*, but his version was replaced by director Doug Liman for one by John Powell.

Ultimately the ethos of the punk rock movement gave Burwell the impetus to start performing. He performed in New York with several bands, notably The Same, Thick Pigeon, and Radiante. Burwell played in Thick Pigeon with Stanton Miranda; the group released two albums, *Too Crazy Cowboys* (Factory) and tracks on *Miranda Dali* (Crepuscule), originally released as a Miranda solo project but later reissued as a Thick Pigeon release. On Burwell's soundtrack for *Psycho III*, Miranda was a featured singer.

By 1986 he had composed the music for a dance piece, RAB, which premiered at the Avignon Festival. At the same time, he was touring worldwide with The Harmonic Choir, David Hykes' experimental vocal group, which specialized in overtone singing.

Burwell used the country music genre as the basis for his score for the Coens' *Raising Arizona* in 1987. From 1982 to 1987 he worked at the New York Institute of Technology.

His work has alternated between live performance, dance and theater commissions, and film scoring. His chamber opera, *The Celestial Alphabet Event,* was presented in New York in 1991, and other theater pieces include *Mother* (1994) and *Lucia's Chapters* (2007), both with the experimental theater group Mabou Mines.

In April 2005 Burwell composed and conducted music performed by The Parabola Ensemble for the plays *Sawbones,* written and directed by the Coen brothers, *Hope Leaves the Theater,* written and directed by Charlie Kaufman, and *Anomalisa,* written and directed by Kaufman as Francis Fregoli. This was a segment of the sound-only production "Theater of the New Ear", which debuted at St. Ann's Warehouse in Brooklyn, New York, with support from Sirius Satellite Radio. It was also performed at the Royal Festival Hall in London, England, in May 2005, and at Royce Hall in Los Angeles, California, in September 2005, as part of the UCLA Live Festival.

In 2009, Burwell was the recipient of the ASCAP Henry Mancini Award from the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers. In 2010, he was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score for *Where the Wild Things Are*.

In 2015, he received the Distinguished Film Composer award from the Middleburg Film Festival, and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association award for Best Music Score for *Anomalisa* and *Carol*. He was nominated for the Annie Award for Music in an Animated Feature Production for *Anomalisa* and the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score for *Carol*. In 2016, he received the Satellite Award for Best Original Score and the Best Score award by the International Cinephile Society for *Carol*. Burwell was awarded Film Composer of the Year by the World Soundtrack Awards, and the score for *Carol* received the Public Choice Award for the Best Score of the Year.

Burwell received his first Academy Award for Best Original Score nomination for *Carol*, and his second for *Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri*.

## Personal life

Burwell married Christine Sciulli in 1999.

## References

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1. ↑ Carter Burwell (en-US). AllMusic Guide.
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Natalie Benedict Burwell Obituary: View Natalie Burwell's Obituary by Northern Virginia Daily. Legacy.com (February 24, 2010).
3. ↑ Carter Burwell Biography - Yahoo! Movies. Movies.yahoo.com.
4. ↑ **Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".**
5. ↑ Carter Burwell - Biography.
6. ↑ Love The Music Of Coen Brothers Films? You Can Thank Carter Burwell. NPR (February 7, 2016).
7. ↑ Carter Burwell to score "Theater of the New Ear" with Coen Brothers and Charlie Kaufman (March 3, 2005).
8. ↑ **Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".**
9. ↑ Theater tunes 'Ear'. *Variety* (May 8, 2005).
10. ↑ Carter Burwell Receives ASCAP Mancini Award. The Film Music Society (May 14, 2009).
11. ↑ Golden Globes nominations: the 2010 list in full. *The Guardian* (December 15, 2009).
12. ↑ Middleburg Film Festival to Honor Composer Carter Burwell and Cinematographer Dante Spinotti (September 2, 2015).
13. ↑ 41st Annual Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards. Los Angeles Film Critics Association (December 2015).
14. ↑ Tapley, Kristopher (December 6, 2015). Los Angeles Film Critics Name 'Spotlight' Best Film of the Year. *Variety*.
15. ↑ Nominations for 43rd Annie Awards Announced (December 1, 2015).
16. ↑ 2016 Nominations Announced!. Hollywood Foreign Press Association (December 10, 2015).
17. ↑ Satellite Awards 2015. International Press Academy.
18. ↑ 'Carol' Named Best Picture by Intl. Cinephile Society. *Variety* (February 21, 2016).
19. ↑ Winners of the 16th World Soundtrack Awards. World Soundtrack Academy (October 19, 2016).
20. ↑ Carter Burwell Named Film Composer of the Year at World Soundtrack Awards (October 19, 2016).
21. ↑ Oscar Nominations: The Complete List. *The Hollywood Reporter* (January 14, 2016).
22. ↑ Where You've Heard First-Time Oscar Nominee Carter Burwell's Scores Before (February 27, 2016).
23. ↑ Notes on Hamlet Soundtrack.
24. ↑ Carter Burwell to Score Joel Coen's 'The Tragedy of Macbeth' (June 1, 2020).
25. ↑ Carter Burwell to Score HBO's 'Olive Kitteridge' - Film Music Reporter.
26. ↑ Carter Burwell Scoring Netflix's 'Space Force' (May 12, 2020).
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## External links

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* Carter Burwell at IMDb**Script error: No such module "EditAtWikidata".**
* Thick Pigeon bio at LTM

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