{"id":8251,"date":"2026-01-23T02:29:50","date_gmt":"2026-01-23T02:29:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/oscar-nominees-music-2026-diane-warren-bryce-dessner-reacts-1236160958\/"},"modified":"2026-01-23T02:29:50","modified_gmt":"2026-01-23T02:29:50","slug":"oscar-nominees-music-2026-diane-warren-bryce-dessner-reacts-1236160958","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/oscar-nominees-music-2026-diane-warren-bryce-dessner-reacts-1236160958\/","title":{"rendered":"Diane Warren, Alexandre Desplat, Bryce Dessner & More Celebrate Their Oscar Music Nominations: \u2018I\u2019m Not Gonna Lie & Say I Wouldn\u2019t Like to\u00a0Win\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n\tFor Diane Warren,<\/a> the 17th time may be the charm for taking home her first Oscar, while The National\u2019s Bryce Dessner<\/a> and composers Nicholas Pike and Max Richter are all celebrating their first nominations. For two time-Oscar winner Alexandre Desplat<\/a>, it\u2019s a chance to add another trophy.<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\t\t\tDirector Ryan Coogler attends the European premiere of \"Sinners\" at Cineworld Leicester Square on April 14, 2025 in London, England.<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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\t\t\t\t\t\u2018Sinners\u2019 Receives a Record 16 Oscar Nods: Full List of 2026\u00a0Nominees\t\t<\/p>\n<\/h3><\/div>\n

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\t\t\t\t\tSnubs & Surprises in the 2026 Oscar\u00a0Nominations\t\t<\/p>\n<\/h3><\/div>\n

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\t\t\t\t\tDiane Warren\u2019s 17 Oscar Nominations for Best Original Song: History in the\u00a0Making\t\t<\/p>\n<\/h3><\/div>\n

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\n\tThey all may have approached writing for their nominated projects differently, but on Thursday (Jan. 22), the original score and original song honorees are all united on feeling the joy of hearing their name called when the 2026 Oscar nominations<\/a> were announced at 8:30 a.m. ET this morning.<\/p>\n

\n\tBillboard<\/em> talked to a number of the nominees shortly after they learned of their nominations. Below are condensed highlights from the interviews.<\/p>\n

\n\t\tBryce Dessner, \u201cTrain Dreams,\u201d Train Dreams <\/em>(original song)<\/strong>\t<\/h2>\n

\n\tClint Bentley\u2019s Train Dreams<\/em> is such a minimalist film with the emphasis on the cinematography and small acting ensemble that the director and the film\u2019s composer, The National\u2019s Bryce Dessner, questioned if it even needed a song, but the pair ultimately decided it did. \u201cIt felt like [the song] had to kind of walk a careful line of feeling part of the film, which feels so closely related to the book, and this universe in which it lives,\u201d says Dessner.<\/p>\n

\n\tNick Cave was Bentley\u2019s first choice to write the lyrics and perform the song. \u201cHe\u2019s obviously a huge hero of mine, of my band, and someone we\u2019ve listened to forever,\u201d Dessner says. \u201cIt was not something I had imagined doing because how would we get to him?\u201d But it turns out Cave was a huge fan of the book the movie is based on.\u00a0\u201c[Nick] called me and just said, \u2018Look, I really want this to feel part of the world you created. Can you send me some music to work with? I sent him a piece that then he was able to write over and that\u2019s how it happened. Sometimes beautiful profound things are fairly effortless. I think that, basically, Nick had a dream, woke up and wrote the lyrics. It just came together quite quickly. A couple days [later] in the studio he asked me if I had any notes. I said, \u2018Don\u2019t change a thing.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tDessner says he and Cave have no future plans to work together, though he would be open to it. \u201cThis is just such a joy,\u201d he says. \u201cHaving my name on an Oscar nomination with Nick is such a big honor.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\tAlexandre Desplat, Frankenstein <\/em>\u00a0(original score)<\/strong>\t<\/h2>\n

\n\tDesplat considers Frankenstein the \u201cthird movement of the triptych\u201d with director Guillermo Del Toro, following Pinocchio<\/em> and The Shape of Water<\/em>. \u201cThey are all about the creatures and being able to receive love to give love and create empathy, so there\u2019s some kind of line going through these three scores and these three movies. Each time it\u2019s how do you bring the audience to understand and love the creature?\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tTo represent humanity, Desplat chose \u201cthe smallest, tiniest, most beautiful and most difficult instrument, which is the violin,\u201d which plays as the movie opens and creates the sound of the creature for the film. \u201cOf course, it will get bigger and operatic and huge with a symphonic choir but keeps going back and forth between this very intimate, gentle sound and the huge symphonic sound.\u201d\u00a0 Desplat and Del Toro had decided on the solo violin motif long before shooting for the movie even began. \u201cWe wanted the avoid the obvious, avoid the horror film, avoid the scary and we knew that we needed to be touched, moved by the creature. Very early on, we spoke about using a string instrument because the creature is a huge thing and we need to have a counterpoint with this instrument.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOver the course of their work together, the two have developed complete trust. \u201cGuillermo likes music in cinema and that makes a huge difference because when the composer comes near him, he allows him to do whatever he wants as long as it brings the dramaturgy and the characters int a wider level of emotion. And so, it\u2019s really a flawless [process.]\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWith 12 nominations and two wins, Desplat says it is still a thrill to be nominated. \u201cIt\u2019s fabulous!,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s amazing each time. I\u2019m so grateful.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\tNicholas Pike, \u201cSweet Dreams of Joy,\u201d Viva Verdi! <\/em>(original song)<\/strong>\t<\/h2>\n

\n\tWriting an aria for the closing of Viva Verdi!<\/em>, an independent documentary that shines a light on the elderly opera singers and musicians who live in Milan\u2019s Casa Verdi retirement home (built by the composer in 1896) and mentor young music students, opened up a whole new path for Pike. \u201cI can\u2019t say I was a huge opera fan or going to the opera all the time,\u201d he says before writing the song, but he found the process so enjoyable, he has written more arias for upcoming films and is now entertaining the idea of writing an opera that could hopefully appeal to a \u00a0younger audience to \u201cThis is a passion of mine at the moment,\u201d he says, adding the film \u201creally brought all that to life. Ideally, I would get a commission of some sort.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tPike, who also scored the documentary, wrote \u201cSweet Dreams of Joy\u201d based on a 12-minute snippet of the film sent to him by producer Christine La Monte. \u201cIt was so inspiring, it was so full of humanity and music and energy, that I literally walked over to the piano and wrote the piece without any thought of would it end up in the film,\u201d he says. \u201cIt was just so moving I had to write the piece. The lyrics took me a little longer to finesse them, but, really, it was just pure inspiration.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSoprano Ava Maria Martinez sang the aria after the original singer came down with bronchitis. After the singer fell ill, Pike says he was \u201ccomplaining bitterly\u201d to his engineer who suggested Martinez who had worked with her for series Mozart in the Jungle<\/em>. It went so well that Pike pledged to her that \u201cI wasn\u2019t going to rest until you\u2019re singing on the Oscars stage.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\tMax Richter, Hamnet <\/em>(original score)<\/strong>\t<\/h2>\n

\n\tFor Richter, his score to the Golden Globe winner for best motion picture-drama had to coordinate with the natural elements of the film. \u201cThe voice of the forest and of the earth, they\u2019re really a big part of the overall texture of the film,\u201d he says. \u201cIt was almost like a conversation between those natural sounds and the score and dialogue. It was like trying to find very, very minimal kinds of ways for the music, just to kind of make things glow just a little bit.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Chloe Zhao-directed movie looks at William Shakespeare and his wife Agnes\u2019 courtship, marriage and subsequent loss of a child that leads Shakespeare to write Hamlet<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\n\tRichter was deliberately \u201cvery sparing\u201d in his musical choices to let the \u201cpowerful, very emotional material speak on its own terms without trying to direct us as the audience in any particular way.\u201d He also brought in renowned Renaissance choir, Tenebrae, \u201cbut I transformed those vocal recordings in the computer into a sort of haunted, ghostly version of those vocals.\u201d He also used Elizabethan string instruments in keeping with the period, but \u201cwe hear them as altered, refracted ghostly versions of themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tFor all the dark topics Hamnet<\/em> addresses, Richter says working on the movie was nothing but a joyous experience. \u201cIt really is a special project to me because very often you may work on a film and the film will turn out great, but the project was a nightmare, right? That was not the case with Hamnet<\/em>. The vibes on that set were just amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\tDiane Warren, \u201cDear Me,\u201d Diane Warren: Relentless <\/em>(original song)<\/strong>\t<\/h2>\n

\n\tOut of all the songs that Warren has written for films, \u201cDear Me\u201d included a first: \u201cI\u2019ve never written a song about myself,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cDear Me,\u201d the hopeful, inspiring end-title song performed by Kesha that accompanies the documentary about the 17-time Oscar-nominated songwriter, draws from what Warren would tell her younger self.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI was a lonely, misunderstood, bullied kid that spent a lot of time in my room by myself when I wasn\u2019t being kicked out of school or things like that,\u201d she says. \u201cWhat I wanted to do was tell that young girl sitting in a room and picking up a guitar and maybe writing her first song that, \u2018Hey, you know what? You\u2019re going to be OK. You don\u2019t know it now, but you\u2019re going to be all right.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWarren\u2019s most personal song turned out to be her most universal. \u201cIt\u2019s resonated with so many people because we all have that kid inside us,\u201d she says. Even the third graders who came into her studio to sing on it related to the message, she says. \u201cThey said, \u2018This song is giving me hope. This is making me tell myself it\u2019s going to be OK.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tKesha was her first choice to sing the song as she \u201ccast\u201d the role. \u201cThey have to be authentic to the movie and to the song. You have to have both,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019ve known Kesha for a while and I\u2019m so aware she\u2019s an amazing singer. I also knew she\u2019s gone through a lot of stuff so I knew it would resonate with her. She came to my studio and was crying when she heard it and that\u2019s how I knew. There was no other choice.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWarren is behind only Sammy Cahn and Johnny Mercer in receiving the most nominations in the best song category. \u201cThat makes me feel pretty cool,\u201d she says. \u201cThey\u2019ve won a couple of those, right?\u201d The answer is yes, with Warren hoping 17 is her lucky number to finally take home a trophy. \u201cI\u2019m not gonna lie and say I wouldn\u2019t like to win, especially with this song from this movie. Who knows, right?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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For Diane Warren, the 17th time may be the charm for taking home her first Oscar, while The National\u2019s Bryce Dessner and composers Nicholas Pike and Max Richter are all…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[106,96,94,5155],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8251","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-awards","category-music","category-music-news","category-oscars"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8251","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8251"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8251\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}