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Source: Disney

‘Avatar: The Way Of Water’

Film Fest Gent and The World Soundtrack Academy has unveiled the second and final wave of nominations for the 2023 World Soundtrack Awards, which will take place on October 21 at the Film Fest Gent in Belgium, with Golda, Avatar: The Way Of Water and The Menu among the additional titles represented.

Nominations for discovery of the year, public choice award, WSA game music award, best original score for a Belgian production and the Sabam Award for best original composition by a young composer have been revealed.

The nods for film composer of the year, television composer of the year and best original song were unveiled last month.

Scroll down for the full list of nominations

The list of nominees includes both WSA newcomers, such as Japanese band RADWIMPS & Kazuma Jinnouchi, and Arcade Fire and Bon Iver saxophonist Colin Stetson, and WSA favourites such as Nainita Desai, who was the 2021 winner for discovery of the year for her work on The Reason I Jump. This year, she is nominated in a new award category – the WSA Game Music Award, for her work on the game Immortality.

Discovery of the year sees relative newcomers in the field of composition, but with extensive experience as music producers or musicians, highlighted for their work. Nominees in this category include Dascha Dauenhauer, whose scores have previously been used in science fiction series The Swarm and Berlin, Alexanderplatz, for which she received a nomination in 2020. This year, she is nominated for her work on Golda.

Also nominated in this category is Simon Franglen, who worked on award-winning albums by the likes of Whitney Houston and Toni Braxton, and collaborated with composers such as Howard Shore for Se7en and James Horner for Titanic. He has taken over from Horner in the Avatar series as the composer for Avatar: The Way of Water. Colin Stetson has been nominated for The Menu, and will play a live set at Film Fest Gent.

The Sabam Award comes with a €2,500 prize, with participating composers asked to write a score for a scene from the game Abzû, whose original music was composed by Austin Wintory, host of Film Fest Gent’s game music concert Press Play: Music in Games. French composers Emma Kélalèche and Emile Cooper Leplay and American composer Alec Sievern are the young film music talents competing for this prize.

World Soundtrack Awards 2023 nominations

Discovery of the year

Dascha Dauenhauer, Golda
Simon Franglen, Avatar: The Way Of Water
RADWIMPS, Kazuma Jinnouchi, Suzume
Herdís Stefánsdóttir, Knock At The Cabin
Colin Stetson, The Menu

Public choice award

Daniel Pemberton, Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse
Amelia Warner, Mr. Malcolm’s List
Michelino Bisceglia, My Sailor, My Love
Fabrizio Mancinelli, The Land Of Dreams
Mark Smythe, The Reef: Stalker

WSA game music award

River Boy (Narayana Johnson), Cult Of The Lamb
Maclaine Diemer, Firmament
Nainita Desai, Immortality
Gareth Coker, Grant Kirkhope, Yoko Shimomura, Mario + Rabbids Sparks Of Hope
Gregory Nicolett, Potionomics

Best original score for a Belgian production

Valentin Hadjadj, Close
Dirk Brossé, Onze Natuur
Hannes De Maeyer, Rebel

Sabam Award for best original composition by a young composer

Emma Kélalèche
Emile Cooper Leplay
Alec Sievern

Previously announced nominations:

Film composer of the year

Volker Bertelmann, War Sailor, All Quiet on the Western Front, Memory Of Water
Carter Burwell, The Banshees of Inisherin, Catherine Called Birdy, To Catch a Killer
Alexandre Desplat, Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio, Father & Soldier, Asteroid City, A Cooler Climate
Hildur Guðnadóttir, Women Talking, Tár
Daniel Pemberton, See How They Run, Enola Holmes 2, Amsterdam, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
John Williams, The Fabelmans, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny

Television composer of the year

Chris Bacon and Danny Elfman, Wednesday
Nicholas Britell, Andor, Succession S04
Bear McCreary, The Serpent Queen, The Witcher: Blood Origin, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power
Gustavo Santaolalla and David Fleming, The Last of Us
Cristobal Tapia de Veer and Kim Neundorf, The White Lotus S02

Best original song

’Carolina’, Where the Crawdads Sing, Taylor Swift
’Ciao Papa’, Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio, Alexandre Desplat, Guillermo del Toro, Roeban Katz, Dominique “Solrey” Lemonnier, Gregory Mann
’Keep Rising’, The Woman King, Jessy Wilson, Jeremy Lutito, Angélique Kidjo 
’Lift Me Up’, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Temilade Openiyi, Robyn Fenty (Rihanna), Ludwig Göransson, Ryan Coogler 
’Your Personal Trash Man Can’, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel S05,  Thomas Mizer, Curtis Moore, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel cast