Nick Cave & Warren Ellis To Perform Film Score Music At Sydney Opera House

Only a week after the surprise release of new album Ghosteen, Nick Cave and Warren Ellis have announced they will team up with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra to perform tracks from their film soundtracks at the iconic Sydney Opera House this year. 

The legendary artists will take to the Concert Hall stage for three shows in December in what will be some of the final shows there before the venue closes for major renovations. 

"For me, Nick Cave and Warren Ellis are exploring some of the most interesting artistic terrain going so it’s an immense honour to welcome them back to the Sydney Opera House for these incredibly special performances," Sydney Opera House Head of Contemporary Music Ben Marshall said.

"Fourteen years ago this month, Nick and Warren released their spectral soundtrack to The Proposition, the beginning of a now-substantial body of evocative film music publicly distilling their individual artistic concerns; concerns over time revealed to be sitting at the very heart of their entire oeuvres.

"As one of the final Sydney Symphony Orchestra performances in their home before the Concert Hall closes for major renewal works next year, this remarkable celebration of the often-overlooked centre of the Cave/Ellis artistic galaxy is a glorious example of the best of contemporary music taking its rightful place alongside and in partnership with the best of classical music.

"These evenings are an opportunity to fall into rare moments of extraordinary beauty and feeling, do not miss them."

Following their work on The Proposition, Cave and Ellis united again in 2007 to score the Oscar-nominated The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, starring Brad Pitt.

Other scores from Cave and Ellis include 2009's The Road, 2012's West Of Memphis and 2017's Wind River.

"Very often a tension can happen between music and picture that is about chance and a kind of unknowingness that can be really amazing," Cave said.

"Just by putting together two things that were created in isolation, music and film, suddenly something quite magical can happen.” 

For more details on the upcoming shows, check out theGuide.