[Thor Joachim Haga]

Marco Beltrami entered my radar like a whirlwind in the 90s. I was never that much into horror scores, but his approach was something I like to call “delicious darkness”, meaning a more melodic approach to the subject matter (and yes, Christopher Young often does the same, so the comparison you make is fair). So loved SCREAM and especially MIMIC, which remains my favourite to this day. Sorry, Gerate. I followed him with vigilant eyes in the years after, and particularly fell for 3:10 TO YUMA, HELLBOY, I AM DINA, IN THE ELECTRIC MIST, THE DANGEROUS LIVES OF ALTAR BOYS, THE GIVER and THE HOMESMAN. In later years, he’s veered more towards sound design, which isn’t quite my cuppa tea. But now and then, he still churns out a good one.

I was supposed to have met him 2002, when he came to Oslo for the I AM DINA premiere. But he was jetlagged and stayed at the hotel, while I trot around the city with his orchestrator Bill Boston. But then I eventually did meet him (briefly) 10 years later, in LA in 2012. I think we talked about the jetlag episode, but I can’t remember the specifics of the conversation.