Best original music at the Goya Awards: nominations and winners

The Reina Sofía Palace of Arts in Valencia has been the setting for the 36th edition of the Goya Awards, which, like every year, have awarded the most outstanding representatives of the different specialties of Spanish cinema. The Academy of Cinematographic Arts and Sciences has once again brought together the best musicians, directors, actors, screenwriters, producers, editors, costume designers and other representatives of professions, linked in our country to the seventh art.

The awards ceremony takes place, in all its editions, between the last days of January and the first days of February, following the format of the Oscar Awards in the United States, the Bafta Awards in the United Kingdom or the César Awards in France. Since our activity, work and passion is music in cinema, we are going to see what the Most notable Goya Awards for best original music, with the incredible appearance of Zeltia Montes this year.

¿Whatand Are they the Goya Awards?

The Goya Awards, Annual Academy Awards or the Goya, as they are popularly known, are the awards granted annually by the Academy of Cinematographic Arts and Sciences of Spain, to reward the best professionals in each of the different specialties of Spanish cinema.

History of the Goya Awards

Start with your first edition, Celebrated on March 17, 1987 at the Lope de Vega Theater in Madrid. The awards obtained their name because, in the opinion of the academics, “Goya had a pictorial concept close to cinema and several of his most representative works had an almost sequential treatment.” They also considered it appropriate because it was a short and concise name, which was similar to other film awards such as the Oscars or the Césars.

This year the 36th edition of the awards that are currently being awarded was held in 28 categories, in addition to the Goya honorary award. There are a maximum of four candidates for each of them since the XIII edition held in 1998. At the time, there were three candidates in the I edition, five in the II and III edition and three from the IV to the XII edition, although the XXVIII of 2013, only in the Best Film category, five candidates are chosen.

In 2021, the Board of Directors of the Film Academy decided that films with an 'online' premiere could compete and obtain the Goya award, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. All this in an exceptional way and only for the 2021 edition.

Composers nominated for best musicoriginal sica

The Spanish composer Zeltia Montes has been awarded the Goya Award for best original music, for her work on 'El Buen Patrón', by Fernando León de Aranoa, which has won a total of six awards in the 2022 edition. It is her film novel as the main composer, although she has also worked for television, short films, documentaries, concert music and advertising.

Among the nominees we also find Fatima Al Qadiri, for his score of 'La Abuela', a horror film by Paco Plaza. Alberto Iglesias, composer with the most Goya awards, for his work on 'Maixabel', winner of three Goyas, with a script about the victims of ETA; and Arnau Bataller, for 'Mediterranean'. This composer specialized in film music, studied at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles and his most important works as a composer have been 'Brotherhood', 'The Valdemar Heritage' and '88'.

Alberto Iglesias, composer with the most Goya awards

From the perspective of these awards, as we have said, the most prestigious of the seventh art in our country, we could consider Alberto Iglesias, with 17 nominations and 11 awards, the best Spanish film composer. Despite this, his intimate composition for 'Maixabel', in which the piano predominates, could not be the winner this year. But Iglesias is nominated for Best Score, for 'Madres paralleles', at the 94th edition of the Oscars, in 2022.

His brilliant career, which began in 1978 with the short film 'Paisaje' by Montxo Armendáriz, has led him to work in numerous national and international productions, among which his collaborations with the La Mancha filmmaker, Pedro Almodovar. With him, she has worked on 'La flor de mi secreto', 'Carne Trémula', 'All about my mother', 'Talk to her', 'Bad education', 'Volver', 'Broken hugs', 'La skin that I live in' and 'The passing lovers'. Within the Spanish cinematographic universe, he has also composed the original music for legendary films such as 'The Lovers of the Polar Circle', 'Lucía y elsexual' or 'Tierra'.

But that has not prevented him from collaborating with great Hollywood directors, such as Ridley Scott, in 'Exodus: Gods and Kings'; Oliver Stone, in 'Comandante' in Steven Soderbergh's 'Che' or for Thomas Alfredson himself, in 'El topo'.

The FSO at the 2017 Goya Awards

The Film Symphony Orchestra, with its director, Constantino Martínez-Orts at the helm, accompanied Dani Rovira with a live show, on the stage of the Madrid Marriott Auditorium Hotel, in the 2017 Film Academy Awards. In this unusual show, 80 musicians set the gala with the exclusive 'The Music of the Galaxies'.

This celebration took place on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the release of the first Star Wars film (1977-2017), 'Episode IV: A New Hope', nominated for the 1977 Oscar for Best Film, Best Original Screenplay and Best Director.

He Goya Award for Best Original Music It is the main national film award in Spain and a launching pad for the composers who obtain it, since it opens the doors of international cinema, as has happened with Alberto Iglesias. Josephand Grandson, the second most awarded composer, with six awards, worked with Milos Forman on 'Goya's Ghosts', although he decided to withdraw from the project because he did not share criteria with the Czech director.

For its part, Roque Banos, which follows these two on the list of the most recognized by the Goya, with three awards awarded to the original music of 'Salomé' by Carlos Saura; 'The Thirteen Roses', by Emilio Martínez Lázaro and 'The Oxford Murders', by Álex de la Iglesia; He has achieved international recognition with his work for Spike Lee, in 'Oldboy'; Jaume Collet-Serra in 'The Passenger'; or Ron Howard in 'In the Heart of the Sea'.