Ennio Morricone coming to Seoul for 50th anniversary concert

Ennio Morricone [Donice Group]

World's most famous film composer Ennio Morricone will visit Korea in May for a three-day live concert, announced the concert’s promoter Donice Group on Thursday.

According to a press release by Donice, the concert titled “Ennio Morricone 50th Anniversary Live in Seoul” will be held at the Sejong Center for the Performing Arts in Seoul from May 16 to 18.

Korea’s 100-member Mostly Philharmonic Orchestra, a 100-member choir will accompany Morricone for his upcoming performances and feature some top-class performers from Italy including pianist Gilda Butta and soprano Susanna Rigaci who took part in his previous performances in Korea.

Morricone will be performing in Korea for the third time and Rigaci had accompanied him for both of his past concerts in the country.

The statement then explained, "It is especially noted with pleasure that the master composer has chosen Korea’s capital city of Seoul as the starting point of his 50th anniversary worldwide tour set to cover Asia and Europe."

Morricone has sold over two million copies of his albums in Korea alone and was named Korea’s favorite film composer in a survey launched by movie cable channel OCN in 2005.

The 82-year-old music master was born in Italy in 1928 as a son of a jazz trumpet player and he himself majored in trumpet and composition. After starting by composing background music for radio dramas, he has composed over 500 pieces for movies to date including the soundtracks for the 1960s Sergio Leone’s Spaghetti Western films “A Fistful of Dollars” (1964), “For a Few Dollars More” (1965), “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” (1966) and “Once Upon a Time in the West” (1968).

His other soundtracks that followed included those for “Once Upon a Time in America” (1984), “The Mission” (1986), “The Untouchables” (1987) and “Cinema Paradiso (1988) as well as recent compositions for “Love Affair” (1994) "U Turn" (1997), “Kill Bill 2” (2004), “Inglorious Bastards” (2009) and more.

Morricone now stands as the winner of two Grammy Awards, two Golden Globe awards and the Academy's Honorary Award for lifetime achievement among a countless number of music awards he has received. In 2007 he was honored with a tribute album “We All Love Ennio Morricone” participated by world-class musicians including Celine Dion, Andrea Bocelli, Metallica, Bruce Springsteen, Roger Waters and Quincy Jones.

Ticket reservations will be available starting March 30 at online shopping site Interpark.

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