Marius de Vries

Marius de Vries
Born 1961 (age 56–57)
London, England
Genres Electronica, trip hop, rock
Occupation(s) Record producer, composer, engineer
Instruments Keyboards, drum programming, guitar

Marius de Vries (born 1961) is an English music producer and composer. He has won a Grammy Award from four nominations, two BAFTA Awards, and an Ivor Novello Award.

Education

Marius de Vries was educated at Bedford School between 1975-1980 and then at Peterhouse, Cambridge, where he studied for a degree in history.[1]

Career

Music producer

De Vries began his music career playing keyboards for the English 1980s pop-soul band The Blow Monkeys (with whom he has an ongoing creative relationship to this day), then spending the later part of the decade as a session keyboard-player/programmer, working with artists such as Annie Lennox, The Sugarcubes, David Bowie, D Mob, Coldcut, Cathy Dennis, The Soup Dragons, Junior Reid, Brian Eno, U2 and Lisa Stansfield.

His work with The Sugarcubes led to a key role on Björk's Debut, which marked the beginning of a long collaborative relationship with producer Nellee Hooper; the team were responsible for landmark recordings with Massive Attack, Björk, Madonna, The Sneaker Pimps, Tina Turner and U2, and ultimately the soundtrack and score for Baz Luhrmann's Romeo+Juliet, for which de Vries – along with Hooper and co-composer Craig Armstrong – received the first of his two BAFTAs.

Since then de Vries has made records with, amongst others, Robbie Robertson, Neil Finn, Anja Garbarek, PJ Harvey, Melanie C, David Gray, Madonna, Perry Farrell, Skin, Darren Hayes, the Sugababes, Bebel Gilberto, Sophie Solomon, The Leaves, Elbow and Pet Shop Boys.

De Vries produced both of Rufus Wainwright's Want albums (Want One and Want Two), and appeared in the documentary, All I Want, discussing Wainwright's life. He is documented as saying that Wainwright's song, "I Don't Know What It Is", was one of the most complex production challenges he has ever faced, with its hundreds of layers of separate orchestral, choral, and vocal parts.

More recently, De Vries produced and written with Josh Groban on his multi-platinum 2007 release, Awake; mixed Rufus Wainwright's 2007 LP, Release the Stars; produced the 2008 album A Piece of What You Need by English singer-songwriter Teddy Thompson; and produced Robbie Robertson's How to Become Clairvoyant and Sa Ding Ding's eclectic Sino-European LP Harmony.

De Vries served as the executive music producer for the 2016 film La La Land and produced the accompanying soundtrack. He also co-wrote the song "Start a Fire" alongside John Legend, Justin Hurwitz, and Angelique Cinelu, and had a small role in the film as a casting director.

Composer/Film scores

De Vries was the music director of the 2001 film Moulin Rouge! and worked with Nellee Hooper on the film soundtrack of Romeo + Juliet as co-composer, programmer, and co-producer. Both of these projects won de Vries BAFTA awards, and he was awarded an Ivor Novello Award for his compositional work on the former.

He also wrote the scores for Stephan Elliott's surreal thriller Eye of the Beholder as well as Elliott's adaptation of the Noël Coward comedy Easy Virtue. The latter is notable musically for using the real singing voices of leading actors Ben Barnes, Jessica Biel, and Colin Firth[2] to great acclaim.[3]

In 2010, he co-wrote the score of Kick-Ass with John Murphy, Henry Jackman and Ilan Eshkeri. He co-produced, along with Tyler Bates and Zack and Deborah Snyder, and performed on the soundtrack of Snyder's 2011 film Sucker Punch.

June 2013 saw the world premiere of de Vries' score for King Kong, directed by Daniel Kramer, with a book by Craig Lucas and animatronics by Sonny Tilders,[4][5] in Melbourne ahead of a Broadway mounting.

Composer/Other material

In 2008, de Vries created an hour-long modern-dance work with choreographer Rafael Bonachela titled "SquareMap of Q4," which premiered at the South Bank in London in February.

List of songs produced by Marius de Vries

Awards and nominations

BAFTA Awards

Year Recipient Category Result Ref.
1998 Romeo + Juliet Best Film Music Won [9]
2002 Moulin Rouge! Won

Grammy Awards

Year Recipient Category Result Ref.
1998 Ray of Light Album of the Year Nominated [10]
Contact from the Underworld of Redboy Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical Nominated
2001 Moulin Rouge! Best Compilation Soundtrack for Visual Media Nominated
2017 La La Land Won

Ivor Novello Awards

Year Recipient Category Result Ref.
1998 Romeo + Juliet Best Original Film Score Won [11]

World Soundtrack Awards

Year Recipient Category Result Ref.
2001 Moulin Rouge! Best Original Score of the Year Nominated [12]
Most Creative Use of Existing Material on a Soundtrack Won

References

  1. ↑ "From Bedford to La La Land!". Bedford School. 13 January 2017. Retrieved 2017-05-22.
  2. ↑ "Mad About the Boy – Music Video From the Easy Virtue Soundtrack". uk.movies.yahoo.com. Archived from the original on 18 July 2011. Retrieved 31 October 2008.
  3. ↑ "Compilation of reviews for "Easy Virtue" score". easyvirtuereview.blogspot.com. Retrieved 2009-03-16.
  4. ↑ Trueman, Matt (20 October 2011). "King Kong musical to open in Melbourne before hitting New York". London: guardian.co.uk. Retrieved 31 May 2012.
  5. ↑ "King Kong". visitvictoria.com. Retrieved 31 May 2012.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 "Liner Notes – Want One". AlbumLinerNotes.com. Retrieved 29 November 2008.
  7. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 "Liner Notes – Want Two". AlbumLinerNotes.com. Retrieved 29 November 2008.
  8. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 "Liner Notes – A Piece of What You Need". AlbumLinerNotes.com. Retrieved 29 November 2008.
  9. ↑ "Marius de Vries - BAFTA Awards". BAFTA.org. Retrieved July 27, 2018.
  10. ↑ "Marius de Vries". GRAMMY.com. Retrieved July 27, 2018.
  11. ↑ "The Ivors 1998". theivors.com. Retrieved July 27, 2018.
  12. ↑ "Marius de Vries - Awards - IMDb". IMDb. Retrieved July 27, 2018.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.