If you think you don’t know who Ennio Morricone is, you’re wrong.
Anyone who has seen classic films like Once Upon A Time In America, Cinema Paradiso, The Mission and The Untouchables knows Morricone very well.
He’s the iconic Italian maestro behind some of the most memorable scores in film history, including The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, which had its soundtrack inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2009.
Morricone led the 100-piece WA Youth Orchestra, a soloist and 100-voice choir through his greatest works at Burswood Theatre in Perth on Sunday as part of the Perth International Arts Festival.
The 83-year-old has worked as an orchestrator and has been a conductor in the recording field, as well as a composer for theatre, radio and cinema.
Morricone wrote his first concert works at the end of the 1950s and became famous worldwide with Sergio Leone’s westerns including A Fistful of Dollars (1964), For a Few Dollars More (1965), The Good, The Bad and The Ugly (1966), Once Upon a Time in The West (1968) and A Fistful of Dynamite (1971).
Since 1960, Morricone has scored more than 450 films and insists on only conducting his own work.
The maestro conducted the youth orchestra with only the slightest of hand gestures and subtle movements but you could see him lift with excitement at every climax.
He is a man who is clearly passionate about his work and that is why he is so greatly admired around the world.
It was the maestro’s first visit to Australia and he did not disappoint his fans.
Morricone will also perform in Adelaide with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra and a massed choir on March 2.
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