Ennio Morricone, one of the world’s most famous and influential composers, is credited with creating and arranging music for as many as 500 motion pictures and TV productions made in France, Germany, Italy, Russia, Spain, the UK and the US over the past five decades. Among his most recent film scores are Malèna (2000), Fateless (2005), and Baaria - La porta del vento (2009).

As a composer, Morricone has been nominated for five Oscars in the category of Best Original Score. He has received two Grammy Awards, two Golden Globes, five BAFTAs during 1979–1992, seven David di Donatello, eight Nastro d’Argento, and the Polar Music Prize in 2010. In 2007, he received the Academy Honorary Award “for his magnificent and multifaceted contributions to the art of film music”.

Born in 1928 in Rome to the family of a jazz trumpeter, Morricone graduated from Rome Conservatory with three diplomas: in Trumpet, Instrumentation for Band (fanfare) and Composition.

Morricone was six years old when he started composing music and was encouraged to develop his natural talents. He began composing film scores in the early 1960s for so-called Spaghetti Westerns. Though his first films were undistinguished, Morricone’s arrangement of an American folk song intrigued director and former schoolmate Sergio Leone, who hired Morricone and together they created a distinctive score to accompany Leone’s film. The collaboration with Leone is considered one of the exemplary collaborations between a director and a composer. It is likened to creative duets such as Eisenstein-Prokofiev, Hitchcock-Herrmann, and Fellini-Rota.

Among high-profile “customers” for Morricone’s film music were Bernardo Bertolucci, Pier Paolo Pasolini and Dario Argento among many others. After shooting to fame in Europe, Morricone was invited to work in Hollywood. In the US he composed music for films by such celebrated film directors as Roman Polanski, Oliver Stone, Oliver Stone, Brian De Palma, and John Carpenter among others.

Morricone is married and has four children. He lives in Rome. His son Andrea Morricone also composes film scores.