Charles Strouse (1928-2025)

Posted: May 15, 2025 by filmmusicreporter in Film Music News
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Charles Strouse passed away today at age 96 at his home in New York. The composer/lyricist, best known for his work on Broadway musicals such as Bye Bye Birdie, Annie & Applause, has also composed numerous songs and scores for film and television. His scoring credits include Arthur Penn’s 1967 classic Bonnie and Clyde, for which he received a Grammy Award nomination, as well as Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s 1970 western There Was a Crooked Man…, William Friedkin’s 1968 musical comedy The Night They Raided Minsky’s and Sidney Lumet’s 1980 comedy Just Tell Me What You Want. He also co-wrote Those Were the Days, the theme song for the  sitcom All in the Family, and penned original songs for Don Bluth’s 1989 animated classic All Dogs Go to Heaven. Strouse was honored with a Primetime Emmy Award for the song Let’s Settle Down (written with Lee Adams) for 1995’s television adaptation of Bye Bye Birdie. Read the rest of this entry »

Composer, performer and violinist Paris Hurley (aka Object As Subject) has made her feature scoring debut on the upcoming drama The Chronology of Water. The film marks actress Kristen Stewart’s directorial debut and stars Imogen Poots, Thora Birch, Charles Carrick, Tom Sturridge, Esme Creed Miles, Susanna Flood, Kim Gordon, Michael Epp and Jim Belushi. The movie is based on Lidia Yuknavitch’s autobiographical bestseller and follows the author’s journey to find her own voice in an “exploration of how trauma can be transformed into art through re-possessing our own bloody histories.” Read the rest of this entry »

Dragon’s Domain Records has announced two new soundtrack albums featuring classic scores composed by Honorary Academy Award winner Lalo Schifrin (Mission: Impossible, Enter the Dragon, Dirty Harry, Rush HourBullit, Cool Hand LukeThe Amityville Horror). Making its CD debut is the composer’s (newly remastered) original score from the Emmy Award-nominated 1968 television documentary The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich directed by Jack Kaufman, performed by members of the Los Angeles Philharmonic conducted by Lawrence Foster. Visit the label’s official website to order the limited edition CD and to learn more about the release. The other new title is a remastered version of the soundtrack for the British 1989 war drama Return from the River Kwai directed by Andrew McLaglen and starring Edward Fox, Chris Penn and Timothy Bottoms featuring the film’s original music composed and conducted by Schifrin and performed by the Paris Philharmonic Orchestra. Read the rest of this entry »

Lakeshore Records will release a soundtrack album for the Apple TV+ original series Murderbot. The album features selections of the original music from the show’s first season composed by Amanda Jones (NaomiMea Culpa, Super/NaturalGood Trouble, Emperor of Ocean Park, The Perfect FindYoung Love). The soundtrack will be released digitally tomorrow, May 16. Check back on this page for the streaming/download link. Murderbot is created by Chris Weitz & Paul Weitz based on the best-selling book series of the same title by Martha Wells and stars Alexander Skarsgård, Noma Dumezweni, David Dastmalchian, Sabrina Wu, Akshay Khanna, Tattiawna Jones and Tamara Podemski. The sci-fi comedic thriller is set in a high-tech future and revolves around a rogue security robot who secretly gains free will and – in order to stay hidden – reluctantly joins a new mission protecting scientists on a dangerous plane. Read the rest of this entry »

Lakeshore Records will release a soundtrack album for the NBC drama Suits LA. The album features selections of the show’s original music composed by Christopher Tyng (FuturamaThe O.C., Kazaam, Covert AffairsRescue Me, The Associate). The soundtrack will be released digitally this Friday, May 16. The streaming/download link will be added to this article soon. The label has previously released an album featuring the composer’s score from the original Suits series back in 2015. Suits LA is created by Aaron Korsh and stars Stephen Amell, Josh McDermitt, Lex Scott Davis and Bryan Greenberg. The Suits spinoff follows a former federal prosecutor from New York who has reinvented himself representing the most powerful clients in Los Angeles and must embrace a role he held in contempt his entire career. Read the rest of this entry »

The details of the fourth and final soundtrack album for the second season of Lucasfilm’s Disney+ original series Andor have been revealed. The album features selections of the original music from the tenth, eleventh and twelfth episode of Season 2 composed by Brandon Roberts (Thanksgiving, Fear Street Part 2: 1978, Land of BadMotherland: Fort SalemUnderwater, Chaos Walking, The Twilight Zone, Unbroken: Path to Redemption), with original Andor themes by Season 1 composer Nicholas Britell. The Volume 4 soundtrack will be released digitally tomorrow, May 16 by Walt Disney Records. Check back on this page for the streaming/download link. The label has previously released the first four albums featuring music from Episodes 1-3, Episodes 4-6 and Episodes 7-9 over the last couple of weeks. Andor is created by Tony Gilroy and stars Diego Luna, Stellan Skarsgård, Ben Mendelsohn, Genevieve O’Reilly, Denise Gough, Adria Arjona, Kyle Soller, Varada Sethu, Elizabeth Dulau, Alan Tudyk, Faye Marsay and Forest Whitaker. Read the rest of this entry »

Netflix Music has released a soundtrack EP for the Brazilian Netflix original sports documentary Vini Jr. (Baila, Vini). The 3-track EP features the film’s original music by rapper/music producer Papatinho. The soundtrack is now available to stream/download on Amazon and any other major digital music services. Also listen to all three tracks below. Vini Jr. is directed by Andrucha Waddington and chronicles the most challenging year of soccer player Vinicius Junior’s career, when the Brazilian star battled injuries and rose as a powerful voice against racism in stadiums. Read the rest of this entry »

Lakeshore Records will release a soundtrack album for the horror movie Final Destination: Bloodlines. The album features the film’s original music composed by Tim Wynn (Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3Marvel’s Midnight Suns, Freaks, WarhawkXCOM 2The Starving Games). The soundtrack will be released digitally tomorrow, May 16. The streaming/download link will be added to this page within the next series. Click here to check out the project’s music team credits. Final Destination: Bloodlines is directed by Zach Lipovsky & Adam B. Stein and stars Kaitlyn Santa Juana, Teo Briones, Owen Patrick Joyner, Brec Bassinger, Richard Harmon, Anna Lore and Tony Todd. The sixth installment in the Final Destination series follows a college student plagued by a violent recurring nightmare who heads home to track down the one person who might be able to break the cycle and save her family from the grisly demise that inevitably awaits them all. Read the rest of this entry »

Composer Philippe Rombi (Swimming PoolPoticheWar of the Buttons, Asterix: The Secret of the Magic Potion, In the HouseAngel) is reteaming with director Yann Gozlan (A Perfect Man, Burn Out) on the upcoming French psychological thriller The Residence (Dalloway). The film starring Cécile De France, Mylène Farmer, Lars Mikkelsen & Frédéric Pierrot follows a writer lacking inspiration who joins a prestigious artist residency, where she finds support in a virtual assistant that helps her write, but soon begins to grow uneasy with the AI’s increasingly intrusive presence and secretly embarks on an investigation to discover the true intentions of her hosts. Read the rest of this entry »

Netflix Music will release a soundtrack album for the Danish Netflix limited series Secrets We Keep (Reservatet). The album features selections of the show’s original music composed by Halfdan E (Borgen, Ragnarok, The Inheritance, The Bride). The soundtrack will be released digitally tomorrow, May 16. Check back on this page for the streaming/download link. Secrets We Keep is created by Ingeborg Topsøe and stars Marie Bach Hansen, Excel Busano, Danica Curcic, Simon Sears, Sara Fanta Traore, Lars Ranthe, Frode Emil Bilde Rønsholt, Lukas Zuperka, Donna Levkovski and Henrik Prip. The 6-part crime drama follows a woman who is trying to figure out what happened to her neighbor’s vanished au pair and unravels secrets that shatter her seemingly perfect world. Read the rest of this entry »