Roger Kellaway And Clint Eastwood “Invictus”

Award winning pianist, composer Roger Kellaway is pleased to announce his orchestrations for the Clint Eastwood film “Invictus”.

“Invictus” (in theaters today) tells the inspiring true story of how Nelson Mandela (Morgan Freeman) joined forces with the captain of South Africa’s rugby team, Francois Pienaar (Matt Damon), to help unite their country http://invictusmovie.warnerbros.com/.
Roger has this to say about his involvement with “Invictus”.
    "Last June Clint Eastwood invited me to his house to experiment with a musical theme he had written. He asked me to give him some ideas as to how it might evolve. I recorded several variations with his engineer, Michael Stevens. On this occasion Clint asked me if I liked to write for strings? "Of course", I said, "by the way I've scored 26 films."
    "A month later I got a call from Rob Lorenz (one of Clint's producer's) "Clint wants to know if you would like to orchestrate INVICTUS?" and of course, I said,"Yes!".
    "I saw the film in mid July at Warner's and loved it. My job was basically to translate synthesizer MP3's composed by Kyle Eastwood and Michael Stevens into music for 44 Strings; 6 brass; piano and percussion. After three weeks of writing, I conducted the INVICTUS score at Warner's on the Eastwood Sound Stage (the very same stage that I conducted my score for Streisand's "A Star Is Born" 20 years ago) - it was thrilling!"
    "I am very proud to be a part of this powerful movie".

Roger Kellaway is not only a major pianist, he is a composer of protean ability, writing in the jazz, classical and popular music fields, and scoring for films and television including the closing theme for "All in the Family" "Remembering You". He has also been honored with a Grammy award for his music on the album "Memos From Paradise" for Eddie Daniels. He has written twenty six film scores including Barbara Streisand's "A Star is Born” for which he received an Academy Award nomination. He's performed with everyone from Elvis to Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie to Yo Yo Ma, Joni Mitchell to Mancini and Quincy Jones to Michael Tilson Thomas.

In 2008 he was awarded the Prix du Jazz Classique (the French “Grammy”) for The Roger Kellaway Trio "Heroes" (IPO Records). Currently, he is working with Van Morrison as Musical Director for a live performance recording (CD/DVD) at the Hollywood Bowl, November, 2008. 2009 finds Roger working again with the Bergman’s on “Visions Of America”, an orchestral, multimedia portrait of Democracy. He wrote and preformed in the “Photo-Symphony” for renowned photographer and producer Joseph Sohm which premiered in Philadelphia with The Philly Pops, conducted by Peter Niro. Kellaway received the "Outstanding Alumni" Award from the New England Conservatory and played solo piano at Carnegie’s Zankel Hall to a sold out audience.
Photo: Kent Lacin
Kellaway continues performing in concerts across the U.S. and Europe, recording numerous new CD’s, also writing for film, theatrical productions and commissioned works. He resides in Ojai, California with his wife (of 43 years) Jorjana.