Morricone makes US concert debut

Ennio Morricone has written music for more than 400 films

Famed Italian composer Ennio Morricone, who will receive an honorary Oscar this year, has conducted his first concerts on US soil at the age of 78.

An enthusiastic audience at New York's Radio City Music Hall looked on as the Rome Sinfonietta Orchestra performed 15 of his compositions on Saturday.

The event followed an appearance at the United Nations 24 hours earlier.

Morricone is best known for his scores for The Untouchables, Cinema Paradiso and Sergio Leone's spaghetti westerns.

Oscar nominations

Excerpts from those scores were played on Saturday alongside work from Once Upon a Time in the West and Casualties of War.

Conducting a 100-piece orchestra and a 100-voice choir, Morricone also presented material from such lesser-known films as The Sicilian Clan and Love Circle.

The evening ended with a suite from The Mission, one of the five films for which he has received Oscar nominations.

Morricone has never won an Academy Award, although he has won a Bafta on each of the five occasions he has been nominated.

'Magnificent'

His honorary Oscar, which he will collect in Los Angeles on 25 February, is in recognition of "his magnificent and multi-faceted contributions to the art of film music".

Friday's concert, held before an invited audience at the UN General Assembly, included a cantata, Voices from Silence, that Morricone composed in response to the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001.

The audience included singer-songwriter Lou Reed, Beninese singer Angelique Kidjo and US guitarist Pat Metheny.

Born in Rome in 1928, Morricone has written music for more than 400 films.

He made his UK concert debut at London's Barbican Centre in 2001.