Eimear Noone would be first woman Conductor at Oscars ! 2020

Mother India, Madhumati, The World of Apu, Deiva Magan, Uphaar, The Chess Players,  Rudaali, Indian, Jeans,  Lagaan, Riddle, Rang De Basanti, Eklavya: The Royal Guard, Peepli Live  .. .. .. [not the full list though!] – do you what connects these ?

Oscars is a coveted award ~ the Academy Awards, are a set of awards given annually for excellence of cinematic achievements.  The 92^nd  Academy Awards ceremony, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), will honour the best films of 2019 and will take place at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California on Feb 9, 2020. During the ceremony, AMPAS will present Academy Awards (commonly referred to as Oscars) in 24 categories. The ceremony will be televised in the United States by ABC.

On February 9, the Oscars will be awarded at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles and even the losers will go home with lavish consolation prizes. While just four actors and one director will bring home the gold in the top individual categories, all 24 nominees still get a six-figure gift bag courtesy of Distinctive Assets, a celebrity and product placement marketing company. This year’s Oscars swag is valued at $215,000(Rs.1.53 cr approx.), up nearly $70,000 from last year’s haul. In terms of pure value, the 24-carat-gold-plated statuette, the most-coveted honor in Hollywood, costs just $400 to make. The value of all 24 bags is $5.2 million—or nearly the domestic box office haul of one of last year’s bombs, The Goldfinch. Though Distinctive Assets is not affiliated with the Academy of Motion Arts and Sciences, which presents the Oscars, its lavish gift bags are an award season tradition.  

Actors win Oscars for their performances on the big screen, but a lot of the time it can be more entertaining to see which stars rule the red carpet.  This year Academy awards will welcome celebrities like Charlize Theron, Cynthia Erivo and Leonardo DiCaprio, to name a few. Big-name stars often wear gowns and diamonds that cost thousands — sometimes millions — of dollars, but there’s a good chance those celebrities don’t pay a cent. This is no post on the awards or actress but on Eimear Noone, an Irish conductor and composer. 

Eímear Noone has conducted the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic, l’Orchestre symphonique de Bretagne, the Sydney Symphony, the Danish National Symphony Orchestra, and several other national orchestras. There have been some conductors and Noone is unique as she  will be the first woman to conduct at the Oscars  2020, leading the orchestra in excerpts from the five nominated film scores. Incidentally,  Noone was also the first woman to conduct at the National Concert Hall in Dublin, Ireland.  She will take to the pit with the orchestra this coming 8 February. Noone will be one of two high-profile Irish women at the event, as Saoirse Ronan is nominated in the awards for her role in Little Women.

Noone, who is originally from Kilconnell in Galway but divides her time between Ireland and California, has had a long and successful career as a composer and conductor. Much of her work involves composing for video games, such as World of Warcraft and Zelda. She’s currently working on the Maria Callas hologram tour. She’s also a presenter of the video game show High Score on Classic FM.

With Oscars just round the corner and many films are in contention, women have seem to have make their mark for the ceremony even before the start of the celebrations.  Galway-born Eimear Noone will be the first female ever to take charge of the orchestra at the Academy Awards when she conducts excerpts from the five nominated scores. Teen sensation Billie Eilish has been announced as a performer for the 2020 Academy Awards ceremony. The announcement was made by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on Twitter.

Eilish recently scripted history after she bagged the top four prizes at the Grammy Awards -- best new artiste, record of the year, album of the year and song of the year. The 18-year-old singer became the youngest solo performer to ever win the album of the year trophy for debut 'When We All Fall Asleep Where Do We Go', breaking Taylor Swift's record, who won the award at age of 20 for 'Fearless'.

Interesting ! .. … the films mentioned at the start are part of the list of Indian films submitted for Oscars.  Though we often we hear talks on Sivaji’s Navrathri rejected for they refused to accept that all roles could be don by a single person and Ulaganayar on the verge of winning Oscar – such thing would seldom happen –  these films are on a category of films produced outside USA but containing primarily non-English language, known as Best foreign language film earlier.  The main Oscar Awards are primarily presented to motion pictures  that are more than 40 minutes long; its public premiere must have been in a movie theatre,  must be in 35 mm or 70 mm film format or in 24 frame progressive scan digital format and .. .. must have played in a Los Angles country theatre for paid admission for 7 consecutive days, beginning in the appropriate calendar year !

With regards – S. Sampathkumar

3^rd Feb -2020.