Career As Film Composer and Other Works
Kamen wrote eleven ballets, a saxophone concerto and an electric guitar concerto (with Japanese guitarist Tomoyasu Hotei as a soloist). Additionally, he wrote a commissioned work, "Quintet," for the Canadian Brass. He also provided scores for the films such as Back to Gaya, The Dead Zone (film), For Queen and Country, Polyester, Brazil, Someone To Watch Over Me, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, The Three Musketeers, Highlander, X-Men, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, Licence to Kill, the Lethal Weapon series, the first three films of the Die Hard series, Mr. Holland's Opus, The Iron Giant, Splitting Heirs, Frequency, and many others. To this day the overture from Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves is used by Morgan Creek Productions for its logo, while New Line's corresponding theme is the opening segment of a track from Highlander. He also scored both the From the Earth to the Moon and Band of Brothers series on HBO. The trailer for the 2008 Disney/Pixar release WALL-E featured Kamen's 'Central Services / The Office' from his Brazil 1985 OST.
In television, Kamen composed music for two series of The Manageress produced by Glenn Wilhide at Zed Productions for Channel 4, but perhaps his best known work was on the 1985 BBC Television serial Edge of Darkness, on which he collaborated with Eric Clapton to write the score. The pair were awarded with a British Academy Television Award for Best Original Television Music for their work and performed the main movie theme with the National Philharmonic Orchestra at the Royal Albert Hall of London in 1990 and 1991. In 1994, Kamen conducted an orchestration of The Who's music for Roger Daltrey's 50th birthday concert series entitled Celebration: The Music of Pete Townshend and The Who which was subsequently released on CD and DVD. He also worked with heavy metal band Metallica, on a two day concert that was held in Berkeley, California, with the San Francisco Symphony. A recording of the concert, titled S&M, debuted at #2 on the Billboard 200, won a Grammy for the "Best Rock Instrumental Performance" in 2000 and went multi-platinum in 2001.
Kamen was nominated for two Academy Awards and won three Grammy Awards, two Golden Globes, two Ivor Novello Awards, an Annie Award and an Emmy.
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