Ennio Morricone was born in Rome on 10 November 1928, into a working-class family which instilled in him a prodigious work ethic. At a very early age, he took up the trumpet, studying at the Santa Cecilia Conservatory. He went on to study composition at the same institution with Goffredo Petrassi, with whom he would remain close in spite of the stylistic differences between the two. In 1954, Morricone undertook a number of collaborations in varied settings, which provided him with invaluable experience; the year saw the composition of works for voice and piano, chamber music and a Piano Concerto dedicated to Petrassi, as well as radiophonic works, songs and arrangements of, and contributions to, film scores by other composers. He worked with variety orchestras associated with Italian National Radio, conductors/arrangers Pippo Barzizza and Cinico Angelini, and the RCA record label, all with considerable success. The modernity of his musical language, distinguishing it from the prevailing clichés of the time, brought about immediate recognition of his talent as a composer.

Morricone’s name became associated with popular songs, which he composed or arranged, such as Il barattolo, Se telefonando (considered to be one of the best Italian songs from the post-war era), Abbronzatissima and Ogni volta e via dicendo. As such, he was widely recognised for his skilful settings of lyrics, as well as the novel timbres which characterise his orchestrations, his use of noise elements and unusual instruments, and his idiomatic elaborations of chromatic figures; traits which may be found in his films scores as well as his concert works.

In 1958, he attended the Darmstadt Summer Courses, where he first encountered the music of Luigi Nono (whose Cori di Didone and Il canto sospeso left a lasting impression). Three years later, Morricone made his debut as a film composer, with the soundtrack of Luciano Salce’s The Fascist (“Il Federale;” 1961), a prelude to later collaborations with the father of the Spaghetti Western, Sergio Leone. Through his work on the “Dollars Trilogy” (comprising A Fistful of Dollars [1964], For a Few Dollars More [1965] and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly [1966]), Morricone reinvented the sonic landscape of the Western cinematic genre. On these and other soundtracks, he enlisted the support of multi-instrumentalist Alessandro Alessandroni, guimbard player Salvatore Schilirò, guitarist Bruno Battisti D’Amario, trumpet player Francesco Catania and singer Edda Dell’Orso.

Offers of collaborations with other prominent Italian directors—including Argento, Bellocchio, Bertolucci, Bolognini, Cavani, De Seta, Ferreri, Montaldo, Pasolini, Petri, Pontecorvo, Wertmüller, Zurlini and the Taviani Brothers, among others—were forthcoming. With a growing international reputation, he was also commissioned to compose soundtracks for films by European and American directors, including Almodovar, Beatty, Boormann, De Palma, Joffé, Lyne, Polanski, Stone, Verneuil, von Trotta, etc. (Stanley Kubrick asked him to compose the music for “A Clockwork Orange,” but the collaboration never materialised.) The popularity of his film music earned him his first gold record (i.e., selling one million copies) in 1971.

In spite of his prolific work in cinema, Morricone continued to compose concert music. Of the ten pieces dating from this period, five have a distinctly cinematic quality and were largely based on prior film soundtracks (e.g., Requiem per un destino, which drew upon material from the score for Vittorio De Seta’s film, Almost a Man [“Un uomo a metà”]). In contrast, works such as Suoni per Dino (characterised by its periodic musical structure), Caput Coctu Show (a setting of a text by Pier Paolo Pasolini), Bambini del mondo (with a modular form) and Grande violino piccolo bambino are demonstrative of Morricone’s approach to absolute forms.

During this period, Morricone also joined the avant-garde free improvisation collective “Nuova Consonanza” (following an invitation from its founder, Franco Evangelisti). The group’s performances combined the use of electronic instruments, chance elements, “gestuality” and musique concrète. Several years later, in 1984, Morricone co-founded the Theatrical Music Research Institute (IRTEM) in Rome, which quickly became a leading organisation for the study and promotion of music composed in association with other media. From 1970 to 1972, Morricone participated in an initiative which sought to amend teaching methods in Italian conservatories. Along with Daniele Paris, Bruno Nicolai, Dino Asciolla, Vincenzo Mariozzi and Severino Gazzelloni, he co-founded a music school in Frosinone (near Rome) which later became the Licinio-Refice Conservatory. Although Morricone’s pedagogical activities at the institution were short-lived due to his other commitments, he resumed teaching in 1991, when he started to regularly lead summer master-classes (along with Sergio Miceli) at the Accademia Chigiana in Sienna.

Over the course of his career, Morricone received numerous prizes and distinctions, including two Oscars (an honorary lifetime achievement award in 2007 and “Best Soundtrack” for The Hateful Eight in 2016, in addition to five other nominations), five BAFTAs, three Golden Globes, a Grammy, a European Film Award, ten “Silver Ribbons” (“Nastri d’argento;” Italian film awards presented annually by the Italian Syndicate of Film Journalists), nine David di Donatello (cinema awards presented annually by the Accademia del Cinema Italiano), 27 gold and six platinum records, among others. He also received accolades from several prestigious institutions, including the Vittorio De Sica Prize, the SACEM Grand Prix and a Golden Graal. Morricone received a doctorate honoris causa from Gothenburg University, and was made an Officer of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French Ministry of Culture, a Commander of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic and a Knight of the Order of the Legion of Honour upon decree by the President of the French Republic.