You remember this 2016 film — it encapsulates the romantic glory of the city of Los Angeles, and even nearly won the Oscar for Best Picture at the 2017 Academy Awards — La La Land.
Of course the magic of the film is largely thanks to the standout soundtrack, which just happened to be composed by Justin Hurwitz. With sprawling soundscapes that captured the essence of a metropolitan utopia while Sebastian (Ryan Gosling) and Mia (Emma Stone) waltzed through a timeless love story, Hurwitz made his hometown glisten, sparkle and outright sing along with them.
Now Hurwitz is looking to add music's biggest prize to his collection of awards garnered for his work on La La Land, including two Oscars and two Golden Globes, with four 60th GRAMMY Awards nominations. The composer is up for Best Compilation Soundtrack For Visual Media and Best Score Soundtrack For Visual Media for La La Land, Best Song Written For Visual Media for "City Of Stars," and Best Arrangement, Instruments And Vocals for "Another Day Of Sun."
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For Hurwitz, though his music has gotten plenty of acclaim since the film was released, the GRAMMYs offer a special kind of recognition.
"It feels great," says Hurwitz. "It's kind of a slightly different kind of honor in the sense that it's the music industry that's nominating, it's the music industry that's voting. It's a more eclectic group of songs and artists that they draw from."
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Congratulations to the cast and crew of <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/LALALand?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#LALALand</a> for their 4 Grammy nominations! <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/GRAMMYs?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#GRAMMYs</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/GrammyNominations?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#GrammyNominations</a></p>— La La Land (@LaLaLand) <a href="https://twitter.com/LaLaLand/status/935564333261635585?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 28, 2017</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
The 33-year-old composer earned a previous GRAMMY nomination for Best Score Soundtrack For Visual Media for his work on the drum-themed film Whiplash at the 58th GRAMMY Awards. But that doesn't mean he isn't excited to attend this year's 60th celebration in New York.
"Being a part of the GRAMMYs, being nominated, and getting to go and meet so many people and the fellow nominees is a really fun part of it too."
