Frank Ilfman

Since the age of eight, Frank Ilfman had his heart set on a career in music. 

 

He studied piano and trombone at the renowned Jaffa Conservatorium of Music in Tel Aviv and as a teenager, was playing lead trombone with the Tel Aviv Dixieland Band. 

 

However, the tenacious young composer became frustrated with the structured methods of the Conservatorium and wanted to be more imaginative in how he created music, so he set out to achieve his ambition to be a film composer. Fast forward to today, Frank has scored numerous TV dramas, documentaries and feature films including the hit black comedy horror, Big Bad Wolves, which saw him win the coveted Saturn Award for Best Original Music in 2014 ahead of John Williams, Howard Shore and Danny Elfman. 

 

His score for the documentary feature Speer Goes To Hollywood, has just been nominated for the prestigious IDA Best Music Award, and his score for the action thriller Gunpowder Milkshake, starring Karen Gillan, Angela Bassett, Lena Headey and Michelle Yeoh has been nominated for the International Film Music Critics Association's Best Original Score for an Action/Adventure/Thriller Film, one of 5 nominees alongside Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard. 

 

His innate ability to forensically diagnose how music can best contribute to the atmosphere of a film, coupled with his ability to create strong orchestral themes undercut with a brooding melancholy, has proved the perfect musical companion to projects in the horror and thriller genres.

 

Frank scored the critically acclaimed Lionsgate horror Ghost Stories directed by Jeremy Dyson and Andy Nyman, starring Martin Freeman and Paul Whitehouse. Other recent credits include the original music for the Legendary Pictures Fanfare logo, the thriller The Operative starring Diane Kruger and Martin Freeman, and drama Rory’s Way starring Brian Cox and Rosanna Arquette. His many scores also include the Israeli tv series Commandments; Cupcakes, There Are No Lions in Tel Aviv and The Art of Waiting.