If there is one name linked to the great classics of cinema, it is Ennio Morricone. This Italian composer and conductor has become one of the most acclaimed musicians of the 20th century, even receiving an honorary academy award in 2007 "for his magnificent and multifaceted contributions to the art of film music".
He was born in Rome, Italy in 1928. Being son of a jazz trumpeter, he started to show his early talent for music, and joined Rome's Conservatory of Santa Cecilia when he was 12 years old. In his youth, he suppoted himself by playing as a trumpeter in jazz bands and working for Italy's national radio. However, he was really succesful as a composer of film sountracks, as many as 500, and some of them as famous as The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, The Mission, Cinema Paradiso, The Untouchables and Once upon a Time in America by Sergio Leone, with whom he formed one of the great director/composer parnerships in cinema history.
Nowadays, he continues to compose soundtracks for films as well as other kinds of work, like the recently launched album Paradiso by Hayley Westenra.
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