World Soundtrack Awards Celebrate Landmark 25th Edition by Promoting Orchestral Music as Film Composers Grow ‘Wary’ of AI

It is a landmark year for the World Soundtrack Awards, which are celebrating 25 years of recognizing the contributions of global film and television composers. The event spawned out of Belgium’s Film Fest Ghent, which cleverly realized it needed to set itself apart from similar film events back in the 1980s. The festival’s focus on film music eventually settled into the World Soundtrack Awards and its parent organization, the World Soundtrack Academy, in 2001. 

Speaking with Variety ahead of this year’s special edition, Film Fest Ghent programme director Wim De Witte recalls the start of the WSA with the first-ever live concert by multiple Oscar-winning German composer Hans Zimmer. “We had an entire symphonic orchestra and choirs onstage; it was an amazing production and took a lot of effort from our team,” he says, adding that the talent managers who attended the event realized back then it was a great opportunity to turn Ghent into a meeting point between filmmakers and composers. 

Music director of Film Fest Ghent and renowned composer Dirk Brossé also remembers that concert fondly. “There were almost 200 musicians on stage, an African choir, a Western choir, a jazz band, a pop band… It was an incredible night and the start of a long series of concerts that has grown and grown and grown over the years.”

When it comes to the importance of hosting the WSA during the festival, De Witte says, “there are a lot of festivals throughout the year, you could go to one every week if you wanted to, so it’s not that easy to attract world premieres or major films. Film music has helped put us on the international map of film festivals.”

Still on the influence of the WSA, Brossé notes how, nowadays, “more and more orchestras around the world are playing film music,” something that wasn’t as common when Ghent first began doing it. “Every group that considers itself serious is playing film music today, but what distinguishes our festivals from other festivals and also from other organizers is that we always play the original scores. There are different arrangements, but it is always the original material,” he adds.

On the subject of original material, to mark the 25th anniversary, the WSA will have a triple album release including: “Debbie Wiseman: Music for Film and Television,” featuring all-new studio recordings from the British composer behind “Edie” and “Tom and Viv”; “Craig Armstrong: Music For Film,” an expanded reissue of the first album launched by the festival back in 2007; and “World Soundtrack Awards – 25th Anniversary Celebration,” a limited-edition vinyl set bringing together over two decades of WSA history and featuring live recordings of memorable live and studio performances at the festival.

The entire WSA team is in agreement that one of the key reasons the event remains relevant and successful is the way it operates alongside its advisory board. “We have around 40 highly esteemed professionals who come together to think about events and ideas twice a year,” says music projects coordinator Hanne Schelstraete. “They know what topics are important to composers right now and work with us to understand who we should invite and what voices we should be spotlighting.”

“Our advisory board is not only very strong but also, vitally, international,” adds Brossé. “We have people from China, Africa, South America, and the world alongside key players in the U.S. and Europe. We are constantly in contact with each other and work very well together in shaping the WSA.”

While physical releases and special events mark the WSA looking back at its past, the organization is also firmly facing forward. Talking about the future, Brossé says he is worried about an oversaturation in the industry and is constantly in conversation with the World Soundtrack Academy advisory board when it comes to this issue. 

“Today, the professional film composer is booming,” says the Belgian conductor. “When we started, there was a limited number of composers who had a career, but now you have film schools everywhere. Every conservatory has a film department now and, with AI, more people have access to tools to create soundtracks. Before the electronic era, you really needed to have training as a composer because everything came out of your brain. Since the advent of synthesizers, computer programs and now AI, even people with very low music education can access tools to translate their own fantasies into soundtracks, so the competition is enormous.”

On AI, Brossé made a point of reinforcing how the WSA has a “very clear message.” “Our goal and our statement is to give people who are writing for acoustic instruments and symphony orchestra a platform, which doesn’t mean we exclude other people, but our main goal is to encourage young people to keep writing for a symphonic orchestra.” De Witte echoes that thought: “The WSA will always focus on symphonic music. With AI and other technological developments, you can imagine the difficulties composers are going through, but we will always defend composers writing original music for whichever instruments they choose. We will always try to find a way to present it at the festival.” 

Schelstraete, who leads the WSA industry programs and conversations at the festival, says artificial intelligence will still, of course, be present in Ghent this year, but warns that “some composers are tired of talking AI because it’s a bit depressing.”

“In the 70s and 80s, when the synthesizers came, everybody was scared and thought it was the end of everything,” recalls Brossé. “Then John Williams came back with the orchestra for ‘Star Wars’ and reignited a whole movement. As long as the human race is trying to live as human beings, there will always be an interest in art created by humans.”