Simon Franglen is an English composer of classical and film music. He is also a record producer and former musician. His credits include four of the list of top grossing films and six of the list of best-selling albums of all time.
After showing skill with synthesisers whilst working in London recording studios as a student, Franglen was hired by Trevor Horn as a Synclavier programmer, working on Yes, Frankie Goes To Hollywood, Godley and Creme. He left Sarm West Studios to become an independent producer for acts like The Associates and a composer for commercials and TV. He composed the famous Direct Line jingle.[5]
Franglen moved into film music when he was introduced to the composer John Barry late in the production of the score for Dances with Wolves and collaborated on the soundtrack album. He continued to work with Barry for a number of years, including on Chaplin. Other long-term collaborations were with the film composers Alan Silvestri, James Horner, and Howard Shore, for whom he created the trademark dystopian electronica for Seven by David Fincher.
He worked with producer David Foster on the soundtrack for The Bodyguard and later, produced Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor's "Come What May" with Foster for director Baz Luhrmann's Moulin Rouge!, where he separately acted as vocal producer for the film songs. In 1997, he worked for the first time with James Horner on the score for Titanic,[3] for which he won a Grammy Award as producer of "My Heart Will Go On". He reconnected with Horner for Avatar, spending almost 11 months working on the score; he acted as Electronic Music Arranger and also co-wrote and co-produced the Golden Globe and Grammy nominated theme song. Horner and Franglen continued to work closely together from 2009 on films such as The Amazing Spider-Man, Franglen initially acting as arranger, then moving to score producer.
Recent work
In 2016, a year after the death of his friend and colleague, James Horner, Franglen co-composed the score to The Magnificent Seven, which Horner had commenced. He won an ASCAP award for his work. 2016 also included original music for director Terrence Malick's film Voyage of Time.
In December 2016, he premiered a new fifteen minute 3-dimensional orchestral immersive work in what CNN called 'The World's Highest Art Space'[10] - a 240 speaker immersive experience featuring four separate complete orchestral parts, Chinese Solo instruments, choir and bells on the 2000 ft high 126th floor of the Shanghai Tower, Shanghai, China.
Franglen was responsible for the production and further composition of the music throughout Pandora–The World of Avatar which opened at Walt Disney World in Florida in May 2017, taking over duties from James Horner in 2015.[13] In 2018, an album of selected music from the park was released by Walt Disney Music album.[14]
In 2019, he premiered a new large scale orchestral and choral work for live performance, the oratorio "The Birth of Skies and Earth", based on the great Chinese creation myths. A ninety-minute work, with libretto in Mandarin Chinese, it premiered in Shanghai, with 176 musicians on stage, featuring a 90 piece orchestra, 80 voice choir, and six soloist singers. Subsequently, it toured around China.[17]
In late 2019, he composed the score to Xiaolong Zheng's Turandot, The Three Bracelets, a large-budget Chinese historical action fantasy for release in 2021.
In late 2020, he composed the score to the documentary film about the saving of the Timbuktu Manuscripts from Jihadists – The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu (based on the novel The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu), directed by Otto Bell.
In early 2021, he will be composing the score to the mythological epic, Brahmastra, directed by Ayan Mukerji. In late 2022, he will premiere a new opera.
Franglen accompanied Barbra Streisand for her first live performance in 27 years at the Inauguration of President Bill Clinton in Washington DC. He also toured with her for the subsequent come-back tour.
