The World Soundtrack Awards‘ Discovery of the Year prize has a knack for spotting emerging talent. Gustavo Santaolalla (“21 Grams”), Michael Giacchino (“The Incredibles”) and Nicholas Britell (“Moonlight”) all won it before reshaping the modern film score, and recent winners Daniel Blumberg (“The Brutalist”) and Jerskin Fendrix (“Poor Things”) look set to follow. Mari Fukuhara (“Little Amélie or the Character of Rain”) Mari Fukuhara started piano at three, before studying classical music at Toho Gakuen School of Music while playing in jazz and pop bands on the side.
She later established herself as a solo artist. Within months, she had instead signed on to compose the original score for a pilot project that would eventually become “Little Amélie or the Character of Rain.” “Being involved from such an early stage allowed the relationship between the film and its music to grow over time,” Fukuhara says. I felt that one of the important roles of the music was to make Amélie’s experience of the world feel real.” Looking ahead, Fukuhara hopes to return to live performance while pursuing projects “driven more by images, atmosphere and feeling than by a clear narrative — a film where I could explore a different kind of musical space.” Paris Hurley (“The Chronology of Water”) Trained as a classical violinist from an early age, Paris Hurley earned acclaim for her autobiographical live project Object as Subject before turning to film.
That sense of leading someone through an emotional journey is what people were responding to.” After working alongside Clint Mansell on “Love Lies Bleeding,” Hurley handled Kristen Stewart’s “The Chronology of Water” on her own, pursuing the project after tearing through the source memoir. Film is a fun way to explore that because it can be so grand. Music physically changes you, whether you make it or listen to it.” Hannah Peel got her start doing session work on violin, trombone and piano for a range of artists, all while angling for film and TV.
When the Royal College of Music told her she wasn’t classical enough for its film music master’s, she went her own way, releasing records built around a hand-punched paper-strip music box. The unusual instrument eventually caught the attention of music advisors on projects including “Anna Karenina” and “Dancing With the Stars.” Peel’s work on the 2019 documentary “Game of Thrones: The Last Watch” landed her an Emmy nomination and an agent, and she’s been working steadily since, refining a style balanced between acoustic and electronic textures. She’s now scoring Netflix’s “Assassin’s Creed” series, drawing on the games while developing a sound that blends ancient and new.
That gets me very excited, because I have something that doesn’t sound like anything else, and the production has been open and supportive.” Trained as an architect and born as David Letellier, Kangding Ray made his name in Berlin’s experimental music scene, quietly releasing music on Raster-Noton, the German label known for artists including Ryoji Ikeda, Alva Noto and Ryuichi Sakamoto. His experimental and ambient work gradually gave way to dance and, almost naturally, to film. His first score, for 2022’s “Kiss My Wounds,” caught the attention of German awards voters.
Soon, director Oliver Laxe came calling, inviting him to score “Sirāt.” The process began unusually early. Ray started work two years before the shoot, with Laxe spending five-day stretches at his Berlin studio. By the time cameras rolled, roughly 80% of the score had been written from the script.
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