Composer Barrington Pheloung died in his native Australia on Wednesday, July 31 at the age of 65. Pheloung began his musical training on the guitar at the age of five, and in his late teens moved to London to study at the Royal College of Music. His entree into the world of film and television music came through future Oscar winner Anthony Minghella, who saw one of the ballets Pheloung had composed. Not only did Minghella hire the composer to wrote incidental music for some of his plays, he introduced Pheloung to TV producer Kenny McBain, who hired him for the job that would prove to be the most popular of his entire scoring career -- the long-running mystery series Inspector Morse. Pheloung's scores for the series actually interpolated morse code clues into his themes, and his music was so popular that it spawned multiple soundtrack releases, and he returned for the show's sequel series Lewis and its prequel Endeavor, about Morse's early years.

Minghella later brought Pheloung along for his feature directing debut, the 1990 ghost romance Truly Madly Deeply, and over the next few decades Pheloung would score an impressive variety of features, including the historical drama Nostradamus, the Stephen King adaptation The Mangler, and even Paul W.S. Anderson's first feature, Shopping, starring a 22-year-old Jude Law. 

One of Pheloung's most dependable collaborators was producer-director Anand Taylor, who worked with the composer on several projects for the small screen as well as such features as the Oscar-nominated music biopic Hilary & Jackie, the Steve Martin adaptation Shopgirl, And When Did You Last See Your Father (with Colin Firth, Jim Broadbent and Matthew Beard), and the final chapter of the critically acclaimed Red Riding trilogy.

The composer is survived by his wife Heather and their four children. (Most of the biographical information in this obituary came from Daniel Mangodt's 1994 interview with the composer for Soundtrack)

Planet of the Apes: Original Film Series Soundtrack Collection - Jerry Goldsmith, Leonard Rosenman, Tom Scott - La-La Land 

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The latest soundtrack CD from Caldera presents the first-ever commercial release of Gerald Fried's only Oscar-nominated score, from the 1975 documentary BIRDS DO IT, BEES DO IT, which focused on reproduction in the animal kingdom. (Fried was up against tough competition in the Original Score category that year, including Jerry Goldsmith and Alex North, and to no one's surprise the Oscar went to John Williams for Jaws.) 

La-La Land has announced their five hundredth release, a boxed set featuring the scores for arguably the most ambitious science-fiction franchise in cinema history -- the original PLANET OF THE APES series. Disc One features Jerry Goldsmith's brilliant, game-changing score for the 1968 Planet of the Apes, the original film tracks plus the 1968 LP sequencing; Disc Two features Leonard Rosenman's similarly offbeat score for Beneath the Planet of the Apes, both the original score cues and the tracks (including dialogue) from the 1970 soundtrack LP. Disc Three features Goldsmith's delightfully funky and exciting score for Escape from the Planet of the Apes. Disc Four features Conquest of the Planet of the Apes by composer and veteran session musician Tom Scott, with the full score in mono followed by the surviving stereo tracks. Disc Five concludes the set with Rosenman's rousing score for Battle for the Planet of the Apes. The set can be pre-ordered now and is expected to begin shipping at the end of this month.

The latest batch of releases from Quartet includes Mark Isham's previously unreleased score for the 2017 docudrama MEGAN LEAVEY, with Kate Mara as a young Marine who bonds with her combat dog (unlike this year's Isham-scored A Dog's Journey, recently released by Quartet, the dog does not narrate the film). Other new releases include SHORT CUTS 2018, which features music written for contemporary short films by a variety of composers, including Angelo Badalamenti, Joe Kraemer and Nicholas Pike.

The Academy of Television Arts and Sciences has announced nominations for the Primetime Emmys, including the following music-related categories (see below):

CDS AVAILABLE THIS WEEK

Breath - Harry Gregson-Williams - Rambling (import)
Ghost House - Rich Ragsdale - Howlin' Wolf
Good Omens - David Arnold - Silva
Le Lunghe Ombre - Egisto Macchi - Kronos
Les Miserables - John Murphy - Lakeshore
Occupation in 26 Pictures - Alfi Kabiljo - Kronos 
Ursus Y La Ragazza Tartara - Angelo Francesco Lavagnino - Kronos

When director Cary Fukunaga was hired to direct the latest, still-untitled James Bond thriller, fans were understandably curious as to who would compose the film's score, especially since Fukunaga's relatively brief resume means that he's only worked with a handful of composers -- Marcelo Zarvos (Sin Nombre), Dario Marianelli (Jane Eyre), Dan Romer (Beasts of No Nation, Maniac) and T. Bone Burnett (True Detective) -- and it's just been announced that it is in fact Dan Romer who will score the film. Since his credits so far has been almost exclusively documentaries and other arthouse films, one might assume his "Bond 25" score will be a low-key effort a la Serra's GoldenEye or Arnold's Quantum of Solace, but either way he's a wild card-choice and I'm intrigued to hear what he brings to my favorite film music franchise.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has invited a whopping 842 filmmakers, actors and publicists to join their organization, including the folllowing Music Branch invitees: composers Michael Abels, Nathan Barr, Kris Bowers, Jane Antonia Cornish, Annette Focks, Ludwig Goransson, Rupert Gregson-Williams, Hildur Gudnadottir, Jed Kurzel, Anne Nikitin, Heitor Pereira and John Swihart; songwriters Adele Adkins, Lady Gaga, Annie Lennox, Mark Ronson, Jadon Ruder, Roxanne Seeman, Scott Wittman and Andrew Wyatt; and music editors Missy Cohen, John Finklea, Richard Ford, Bryan Lawson, Peter Myles, Arthur Pingrey, Sherry Whitfield and Robin Whittaker.