Legendary Composer Ennio Morricone Honoured With New Coin

Oscar-winning Italian composer Ennio Morricone (10 November 1928 – 6 July 2020) has been honoured with a commemorative 5 euro coin.

Limited edition coin is part of the ‘Great Italian Artists’ series

The limited edition coin, issued by the Italian Ministry of Economy and Finance, is part of the ‘Great Italian Artists’ series created by State Mint designer Maria Angela Cassol.

The coin’s observe features a portrait of Ennio Morricone and the reverse features an image of the composer’s hands holding a conductor’s baton.

Although the coins are legal tender they are aimed at the collector’s market with just 8,000 coins made in the silver edition and 10,000 coins in the bimetallic version.

Ennio Morricone composed over 500 scores for cinema and television and became famous for scoring the spaghetti westerns directed by Sergio Leone including The Good, The Bad and The Ugly and A Fistful of Dollars.

Oscar-winning composer Ennio Morricone

In 2016 Ennio Morricone won an Oscar for his score to Quentin Tarantino’s film The Hateful Eight. He also was nominated for his original scores for Terrence Malick’s Days of Heaven (1978), Roland Joffe’s The Mission (1986), Brian De Palma’s The Untouchables (1987), Barry Levinson’s Bugsy (1991) and Giuseppe Tornatore’s Malena (2000).

In 2007 Ennio Morricone received an honorary Oscar (presented by Clint Eastwood) for his “magnificent and multifaceted contributions to the art of film music.” He is one of only two film composers in history to have received the honorary Academy Award for his lifetime achievement.

Ennio Morricone was born in Rome on 10 November 1928 and he wrote his first composition aged six. He studied classical music and after graduation began writing scores for theatre and radio. He was hired as an arranger by the RCA label in Italy and also started writing for pop artists. In the mid 1960s he discovered Italy’s contemporary music scene and made boundary-pushing avant-garde music with Gruppo di Improvvisazione di Nuova Consonanza, a collective of experimental, improvisational composers. But it was his film scores that brought him the most fame.

Ennio Morricone died on 6 July 2020, at the age of 91, following a fall at his home in Rome.

Listen to the best of Ennio Morricone on Apple Music and Spotify.

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