Gabriel Yared (

Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walte ...

: غبريال يارد; born 7 October 1949) is a Lebanese-French composer, best known for his work in French and American cinema. Born in

Beirut Beirut, french: Beyrouth is the capital and largest city of Lebanon. , Greater Beirut has a population of 2.5 million, which makes it the third-largest city in the Levant region. The city is situated on a peninsula at the midpoint o ...

Lebanon Lebanon ( , ar, لُبْنَان, translit=lubnān, ), officially the Republic of Lebanon () or the Lebanese Republic, is a country in Western Asia. It is located between Syria to Lebanon–Syria border, the north and east and Israel to Blue ...

, Yared scored the French films '' Betty Blue'' and '' Camille Claudel''. He later worked on English-language films, particularly those directed by

Anthony Minghella Anthony Minghella, (6 January 195418 March 2008) was a British film director, playwright and screenwriter. He was chairman of the board of Governors at the British Film Institute between 2003 and 2007. He won the Academy Award for Best Directo ...

. He won an

Academy Award for Best Original Score The Academy Award for Best Original Score is an award presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) to the best substantial body of music in the form of dramatic underscoring written specifically for the film by ...

and a

Grammy Award The Grammy Awards (stylized as GRAMMY), or simply known as the Grammys, are awards presented by the Recording Academy of the United States to recognize "outstanding" achievements in the music industry. They are regarded by many as the most pre ...

for his work on ''

The English Patient ''The English Patient'' is a 1992 novel by Michael Ondaatje. The book follows four dissimilar people brought together at an Italian villa during the Italian Campaign of the Second World War. The four main characters are: an unrecognisably burn ...

'' (1996) and was nominated for both '' The Talented Mr. Ripley'' (1999) and '' Cold Mountain'' (2003).

Life and career

When Yared was 7, his father sent him to an accordion teacher. Two years later Yared stopped his accordion lessons and started music theory and piano lessons. Although he was not necessarily a gifted pianist, Yared was interested in reading music. When Yared was 14, his piano teacher died and Yared replaced him as the organist of Université Saint-Joseph. Yared used the university's library to read the works of Johann Sebastian Bach, Robert Schumann, and many other composers. This extensive reading inspired his first original composition, a

piano waltz The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboa ...

. Yared gained a degree in law and did not formally study music at the university level until he traveled to France in 1969 to attend the

École Normale de Musique de Paris The École Normale de Musique de Paris "Alfred Cortot" (ENMP) is a leading conservatoire located in Paris, Île-de-France, France. At the time of the school's foundation in 1919 by Auguste Mangeot, Alfred Cortot. The term ''école normale'' (En ...

as a non-registered student. There he learned the rules of music composition from

Henri Dutilleux Henri Paul Julien Dutilleux (; 22 January 1916 – 22 May 2013) was a French composer active mainly in the second half of the 20th century. His small body of published work, which garnered international acclaim, followed in the tradition of ...

. At the end of 1971, Yared went to Brazil to visit his uncle and was asked by the president of the World Federation of Light Music Festivals to write a song to represent the Lebanese in the

Rio de Janeiro Rio de Janeiro ( , , ; literally 'River of January'), or simply Rio, is the capital of the Rio de Janeiro (state), state of the same name, Brazil's List of Brazilian states by population, third-most populous state, and the List of largest citi ...

Song Festival. The song he composed went on to win first prize. While in Brazil, he also performed with a small orchestra. Yared subsequently said that his time in Brazil greatly influenced his work. In 1975, he arranged the album '' Minacantalucio'' for the popular Italian singer Mina. He then went back to France, where he met and collaborated with the Costa Brothers,

Jacques Dutronc Jacques Dutronc (born 28 April 1943) is a French singer, songwriter, guitarist, composer, and actor. He married singer Françoise Hardy on 30 March 1981 and together they have a son (manouche jazz) guitarist Thomas Dutronc, born 1973); they se ...

Françoise Hardy Françoise Madeleine Hardy (; born 17 January 1944) is a French former singer and songwriter. Mainly known for singing melancholic sentimental ballads, Hardy has been an important figure in French pop music since her debut, spanning a career of ...

Charles Aznavour Charles Aznavour ( , ; born Shahnour Vaghinag Aznavourian, hy, Շահնուր Վաղինակ Ազնավուրեան, ; 22 May 1924 – 1 October 2018) was a French-Armenian singer, lyricist, actor and diplomat. Aznavour was known for his dist ...

Mireille Mathieu Mireille Mathieu (; born 22 July 1946) is a French singer. She has recorded over 1200 songs in eleven languages, with more than 122 million records sold worldwide. Biography and career Early years Mireille Mathieu was born on 22 July 1946 in A ...

, and numerous other musicians. This was a prolific period for the composer and he wrote nearly 3,000 pieces over a span of about six years. His contributions included a number of radio and TV jingles, such as

TF1 TF1 (; standing for ''Télévision Française 1'') is a French commercial television network owned by TF1 Group, controlled by the Bouygues conglomerate. TF1's average market share of 24% makes it the most popular domestic network. TF1 is par ...

news jingles and an episode on the series ''In the Tracks of''.

Film scores

Yared is best known for his collaborations with the late

. His first collaboration with Minghella was the 1996 film ''

'', which was highly acclaimed and won him an Oscar for Best Original Score. He composed the scores for all of Minghella's subsequent films and the music for the television series '' The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency'', co-created by Minghella and

Richard Curtis Richard Whalley Anthony Curtis (born 8 November 1956) is a New Zealand-born British screenwriter, producer and film director. One of Britain's most successful comedy screenwriters, he is known primarily for romantic comedy films, among them '' ...

. Aside from his work with Minghella, Yared scored a number of other films, including '' Betty Blue'' (1986), '' Map of the Human Heart'' (1992), '' City of Angels'' (1998), '' Message in a Bottle'' (1999), '' Autumn in New York'' (2000), '' The Next Best Thing'' (2000), '' Possession'' (2002), and '' Bon Voyage'' (2003). He had a notable collaboration with René Laloux in the late 1980es on Gandahar and ''How Wang-fo was saved'' produced at the SEK Studio in

North Korea North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the northern half of the Korean Peninsula and shares borders with China and Russia to the north, at the Yalu (Amnok) and ...

Cassandra Clare Judith Lewis (née Rumelt; born July 27, 1973), better known by her pen name Cassandra Clare, is an American author of young adult fiction, best known for her bestselling series ''The Mortal Instruments''.'' Personal life Clare was born Judith ...

reported in August 2012 that Yared was tapped to compose the score for '' The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones''. However, he was eventually replaced on the project by Atli Örvarsson.

''Troy'' soundtrack

In 2004, Yared's score for the film ''

Troy Troy ( el, Τροία and Latin: Troia, Hittite: 𒋫𒊒𒄿𒊭 ''Truwiša'') or Ilion ( el, Ίλιον and Latin: Ilium, Hittite: 𒃾𒇻𒊭 ''Wiluša'') was an ancient city located at Hisarlik in present-day Turkey, south-west of Çan ...

'' was rejected less than a month before the film's opening as a result of the poor reception by a

test screening A test screening is a preview screening of a movie or television show before its general release to gauge audience reaction. Preview audiences are selected from a cross-section of the population and are usually asked to complete a questionnaire or ...

audience. The test audience were said to have found Yared's music too "brassy and bold".

James Horner James Roy Horner (August 14, 1953 – June 22, 2015) was an American composer. He was known for the integration of choral and electronic elements, and for his frequent use of motifs associated with Celtic music. Horner's first film score was i ...

, the composer of the scores for such films as '' Braveheart'' and ''

Titanic RMS ''Titanic'' was a British passenger liner, operated by the White Star Line, which sank in the North Atlantic Ocean on 15 April 1912 after striking an iceberg during her maiden voyage from Southampton, England, to New York City, Unite ...

'' was then hired to create a replacement score in less than four weeks. Yared expressed his dismay at the score's rejection in an open letter which was posted on his website. He said that the score which the test audience had heard was not yet finished and mixed properly, and that the studio had given him no opportunity to alter his score in light of the audience's reaction. Warner Bros. still owns the rights to Yared's ''Troy'' score and an official recording is not currently available and may never be (although selections from the score were briefly posted on Yared's website and private promotional CD). Film score critic Christian Clemmensen of Filmtracks.com felt that Yared's work for ''Troy'' was far superior to what Horner had written, giving Horner's score a 3-star rating and Yared's a 5-star rating, saying that it was "outstanding," and called it the "pinnacle of Yared's career."

Ballet scores

Yared created the score to the narrative ballet ''Raven Girl'' choreographed to the Royal Ballet by Wayne McGregor after the story by Audrey Niffenegger.

Selected filmography

*''

Sauve qui peut (la vie) ''Every Man for Himself'' () is a 1980 drama film directed, co-written and co-produced by Jean-Luc Godard that is set in and was filmed in Switzerland. It stars Jacques Dutronc, Isabelle Huppert, and Nathalie Baye, with a score by Gabriel Yared. ...

'' (1980) Music *''

La Lune dans le caniveau ''The Moon in the Gutter'' (french: La Lune dans le caniveau) is a 1983 French drama film directed by Jean-Jacques Beineix. It was entered into the 1983 Cannes Film Festival. Although it immediately followed Beineix's big, commercial success ''Di ...

'' (1983) Music *''

Dangerous Moves ''Dangerous Moves'' (french: La Diagonale du fou) is a 1984 French-language film about chess, directed by Richard Dembo, produced by Arthur Cohn, starring Michel Piccoli, Alexandre Arbatt, as well as Liv Ullmann, Leslie Caron, and Bernhard Wick ...

'' (1984) Music *'' Le téléphone sonne toujours deux fois!!'' (1985) Music *'' 37°2 le matin etty Blue' (1986) Music *'' Beyond Therapy'' (1987) Music *'' Agent trouble'' (1987) Music *'' L'homme voilé'' (1987) Music *'' Gandahar'' (1987) Music (not in US dubbed version '' Light Years'') *'' Camille Claudel'' (1989) Music *'' Clean and Sober'' (1988) Music *''

Une nuit à l'Assemblée Nationale ''Une nuit à l'Assemblée Nationale'' (''A Night at the National Assembly'') is a 1988 French comedy film directed by Jean-Pierre Mocky. Plot Walter Arbeit, an ecologist practising naturism, accompanies his mayor and MP, Dugland, to Paris where ...

'' (1988) *''

Romero The name Romero is a nickname type of surname for a Roman or an Italian. The name was originally derived from the Latin word Romaeus and the Greek word Romaios, which mean Roman. #A person on a religious journey or pilgrimage from Rome (possibly ...

'' (1989) Music *''

Les 1001 Nuits ''Les 1001 Nuits'' is a French-Italian fantasy film loosely based on the ancient Arabic legend ''One Thousand and One Nights''. It is directed by Philippe de Broca and stars Catherine Zeta-Jones as Sheherazade, who has married a king ( Thierry Lher ...

'' (1990) Music *'' Vincent & Theo'' (1990) Music *'' The King's Whore'' (1990) Music *'' Tatie Danielle'' (1991) Music and theme song "The Complaint of the Old Bitch" (sung by

Catherine Ringer Catherine Ringer (, born 18 October 1957 in Suresnes, France) is a French singer, songwriter, composer, multi-instrumentalist, dancer, choreographer, actress, and co-founder of the pop rock group Les Rita Mitsouko. She is also the daughter of ...

) *'' L'Amant he Lover' (1992) Music *'' La Fille de l'air'' (1992) Music *'' Map of the Human Heart'' (1993) Music *''

'' (1996) Original Music *'' City of Angels'' (1998) Music and Orchestrations *'' Message in a Bottle'' (1999) Music and Orchestrations *'' The Talented Mr. Ripley'' (1999) Music, Orchestrations and songs *'' Autumn in New York'' (2000) Composed and Conductor *'' The Next Best Thing'' (2000) Music, Conductor and Orchestrations *'' Possession'' (2002) Composer, Conductor and Orchestrations *'' Bon voyage'' (2003) Music *'' Cold Mountain'' (2003) Composed and Orchestrations *'' Sylvia'' (2003) Composer *'' Shall We Dance?'' (2004) Music *''

'' (2004) Composed and Orchestrated (Music Rejected from Final Film) *'' Das Leben der Anderen'' (2006) Music *''

Azur and Asmar ''Azur & Asmar: The Princes' Quest'' (french: Azur et Asmar) is a 2006 French-Spanish-Belgian-Italian computer-animated fairytale fantasy film written and directed by Michel Ocelot and animated at the Paris animation and visual effects studio ...

'' (2006) Music *'' Breaking and Entering'' (2006) Music (with

Underworld The underworld, also known as the netherworld or hell, is the supernatural world of the dead in various religious traditions and myths, located below the world of the living. Chthonic is the technical adjective for things of the underworld ...

) *''

1408 Year 1408 ( MCDVIII) was a leap year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. Events January–December * February 19 – Battle of Bramham Moor: A royalist army defeats the last remnants of ...

'' (2007) Music *''

Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky ''Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky'' is a 2009 French romantic drama film directed by Jan Kounen. It was chosen as the Closing Film of the 2009 Cannes Film Festival, and was shown on 24 May 2009. ''Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky'' is based on the 2 ...

'' (2009) Original music *'' Amelia'' (2009) Original music *'' The Hedgehog'' (2009) Original music *'' The Tourist'' (2010) Original music - Score rejected; replaced by

James Newton Howard James Newton Howard (born June 9, 1951) is an American film composer, music producer and keyboardist. He has scored over 100 films and is the recipient of a Grammy Award, an Emmy Award, and nine nominations for Academy Awards. His film scores i ...

. The movie does carry his track "Dance in F" *''

In the Land of Blood and Honey ''In the Land of Blood and Honey'' ( bs, U zemlji krvi i meda) is a 2011 war drama film written, produced, and directed by Angelina Jolie and starring Zana Marjanović, Goran Kostić, and Rade Šerbedžija. The film, Jolie's first commercial r ...

'' (2011) Original music *'' A Royal Affair'' (2012) Co-composed with

Cyrille Aufort Cyrille is both a French masculine given name and a surname. Notable people with the name include: People with the given name * Cyrille Adoula (1921–1978), Congolese politician who served as Premier of the Republic of the Congo (1961–1 ...

*''

Haute Cuisine ''Haute cuisine'' (; ) or ''grande cuisine'' is the cuisine of "high-level" establishments, gourmet restaurants, and luxury hotels. ''Haute cuisine'' is characterized by the meticulous preparation and careful presentation of food at a high pric ...

'' (French original title: Les Saveurs du Palais)(2012) Original music *'' Belle du Seigneur'' (2012) Original Music *'' A Promise'' (2013) *''

The Prophet A prophet is a person who is believed to speak through divine inspiration. Prophet or The Prophet may also refer to: People People referred to as "The Prophet" as a title * The Prophet (musician) (born 1968), Dutch gabber and hardstyle DJ ...

'' (2014) Original music *'' By the Sea'' (2015) Original music *'' Chocolat'' (2016) *''

It's Only the End of the World ''It's Only the End of the World'' (french: Juste la fin du monde) is a 2016 drama film written, edited and directed by Xavier Dolan. The film is based on the play of the same name by Jean-Luc Lagarce and stars Gaspard Ulliel, Nathalie Baye, ...

'' (2016) *'' The Promise'' (2016) *'' The Death and Life of John F. Donovan'' (2018) *'' Judy'' (2019)

Awards and nominations

Yared has been nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Score on three occasions. He won for ''

'' in 1996. He was also nominated for '' The Talented Mr. Ripley'' (1999) and '' Cold Mountain'' (2003), but lost to John Corigliano and

Howard Shore Howard Leslie Shore (born October 18, 1946) is a Canadian composer and conductor noted for his film scores. He has composed the scores for over 80 films, most notably the scores for ''The Lord of the Rings'' and ''The Hobbit'' film trilogies. ...

, respectively. He has also received three Golden Globe and three BAFTA nominations for the same films, and won both awards for ''

''. He has been nominated for two Grammy Awards, again winning for ''

''.

References

External links

Official website
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Yared, Gabriel 1949 births Living people Musicians from Beirut French film score composers French male film score composers Lebanese film score composers Saint Joseph University alumni French music arrangers French people of Lebanese descent École Normale de Musique de Paris alumni Golden Globe Award-winning musicians Grammy Award winners European Film Awards winners (people) Best Original Music Score Academy Award winners Best Original Music BAFTA Award winners Commandeurs of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres Varèse Sarabande Records artists