Rachel Portman

Birth : 1960-12-11, Haslemere, Surrey, England, UK

History

Rachel Mary Berkeley Portman, OBE (born 11 December 1960) is an English composer who is best known for scoring films. Portman's career in music began with writing music for drama in BBC and Channel 4 films such as Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, Mike Leigh's Four Days in July and Jim Henson's Storyteller series. Since then, Portman has written over 100 scores for film, television and theatre. Her other works include a children's opera, The Little Prince (which was later adapted for television) and Little House on the Prairie, a musical based upon the Laura Ingalls Wilder books Little House on the Prairie (2008). Portman was commissioned to write a piece of choral music for the BBC Proms series in August 2007 called The Water Diviner's Tale. Description above from the Wikipedia article Rachel Portman, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Movies

Julia
Original Music Composer
Using never-before-seen archival footage, personal photos, first-person narratives, and cutting-edge, mouth-watering food cinematography, the film traces Julia Child's surprising path, from her struggles to create and publish the revolutionary Mastering the Art of French Cooking (1961) which has sold more than 2.5 million copies to date, to her empowering story of a woman who found fame in her 50s, and her calling as an unlikely television sensation.
Godmothered
Original Music Composer
A young and unskilled fairy godmother that ventures out on her own to prove her worth by tracking down a young girl whose request for help was ignored. What she discovers is that the girl has now become a grown woman in need of something very different than a "prince charming."
Mimi and the Mountain Dragon
Music
Animated adaptation of the children's book by Michael Morpurgo. A shy little girl named Mimi finds a baby dragon and undertakes a perilous journey to return it to its mother.
The Street
Original Music Composer
The baker, the pie-maker and the diminished long-term community of Hoxton Street face gentrification in this compelling portrait of a rapidly changing London.
Archie
Music
Archie is devastated to learn of the death of his beloved aunt. He makes the long journey to the home she's left him in the Outer Hebrides and a new day brings renewed hope for Archie and his dog.
Score: A Film Music Documentary
Self
Music is an integral part of most films, adding emotion and nuance while often remaining invisible to audiences. Matt Schrader shines a spotlight on the overlooked craft of film composing, gathering many of the art form’s most influential practitioners, from Hans Zimmer and Danny Elfman to Quincy Jones and Randy Newman, to uncover their creative process. Tracing key developments in the evolution of music in film, and exploring some of cinema’s most iconic soundtracks, 'Score' is an aural valentine for film lovers.
Their Finest
Music
During the Blitz of World War II, a female screenwriter works on a film celebrating England's resilience as a way to buoy a weary populace's spirits. Her efforts to dramatise the true story of two sisters who undertook their own maritime mission to rescue wounded soldiers are met with mixed feelings by a dismissive all-male staff.
A Dog's Purpose
Music
A dog goes on quest to discover his purpose in life over the course of several lifetimes with multiple owners.
Race
Music
Based on the story of Jesse Owens, the athlete whose quest to become the greatest track and field athlete in history thrusts him onto the world stage of the 1936 Olympics, where he faces off against Adolf Hitler's vision of Aryan supremacy.
Despite the Falling Snow
Music
New York, 1961. Alexander Ivanov, a high-ranked Soviet bureaucrat, reluctantly defects to the West while is part of a diplomatic mission, feeling the grief of being unable to know the fate of his wife Katya, whom he has had to leave behind in Moscow. Only many years later, in 1991, he will finally find out the truth when his niece Lauren travels to Moscow to participate in a painting exhibition.
Bessie
Original Music Composer
The story of legendary blues performer, Bessie Smith, who rose to fame during the 1920s and '30s.
Dolphin Tale 2
Original Music Composer
The team of people who saved Winter's life reassemble in the wake of her surrogate mother's passing in order to find her a companion so she can remain at the Clearwater Marine Hospital.
Still Life
Music
A council case worker looks for the relatives of those found dead and alone.
Paradise
Music
After surviving a plane crash a young conservative woman suffers a crisis of faith.
The Right Kind of Wrong
Original Music Composer
A stubborn idealist spies a bride on her way to her wedding and immediately falls in love with her.
Belle
Music
BELLE is inspired by the true story of Dido Elizabeth Belle, the illegitimate mixed race daughter of a Royal Navy Admiral. Raised by her aristocratic great-uncle Lord Mansfield and his wife, Belle's lineage affords her certain privileges, yet the color of her skin prevents her from fully participating in the traditions of her social standing. Left to wonder if she will ever find love, Belle falls for an idealistic young vicar's son bent on change who, with her help, shapes Lord Mansfield's role as Lord Chief Justice to end slavery in England
Private Peaceful
Music
Set in the fields of Devon and the WW1 battlefields of Flanders, two brothers fall for the same girl while contending with the pressures of their feudal family life, the war, and the price of courage and cowardice.
Bel Ami
Orchestrator
Georges Duroy travels through 1890s Paris, from cockroach ridden garrets to opulent salons, using his wits and powers of seduction to rise from poverty to wealth, from a prostitute’s embrace to passionate trysts with wealthy beauties, in a world where politics and media jostle for influence, where sex is power and celebrity an obsession.
Bel Ami
Original Music Composer
Georges Duroy travels through 1890s Paris, from cockroach ridden garrets to opulent salons, using his wits and powers of seduction to rise from poverty to wealth, from a prostitute’s embrace to passionate trysts with wealthy beauties, in a world where politics and media jostle for influence, where sex is power and celebrity an obsession.
The Vow
Music
Happy young married couple Paige and Leo are, well, happy. Then a car accident puts Paige into a life-threatening coma. Upon awakening she has lost the previous five years of memories, including those of her beloved Leo, her wedding, a confusing relationship with her parents, or the ending of her relationship with her ex-fiance. Despite these complications, Leo endeavors to win her heart again and rebuild their marriage.
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan
Original Music Composer
A story set in 19th century China and centered on the lifelong friendship between two girls who develop their own secret code as a way to contend with the rigid cultural norms imposed on women.
His Way
Original Music Composer
A look at the professional, political and personal life of legendary movie producer Jerry Weintraub featuring interviews with friends, family and colleagues.
One Day
Music
A romantic comedy centered on Dexter and Emma, who first meet during their graduation in 1988 and proceed to keep in touch regularly. The film follows what they do on July 15 annually, usually doing something together.
National Theatre Live: London Assurance
Music
Grace has agreed to marry Sir Harcourt in return for his financial support of her family. At a house party in her father's place, Harcourt's son Charles also falls in love with Grace. When his father appears on the scene, he has to convince him that there is a case of mistaken identity and he is somebody else. Then Lady Gay Spanker, a married woman also visiting at the house, is persuaded by Charles to seduce his father and thus divert his attention from Grace. Much confusion and scheming ensues.
Never Let Me Go
Original Music Composer
As children, Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy spend their childhood at an idyllic and secluded English boarding school. As they grow into adults, they must come to terms with the complexity and strength of their love for one another while also preparing for the haunting reality awaiting them.
Grey Gardens
Music
Based on the life stories of the eccentric aunt and first cousin of Jackie Onassis raised as Park Avenue débutantes but who withdrew from New York society, taking shelter at their Long Island summer home, "Grey Gardens." As their wealth and contact with the outside world dwindled, so did their grasp on reality.
The Duchess
Original Music Composer
A chronicle of the life of 18th century aristocrat Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, who was reviled for her extravagant political and personal life.
The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2
Original Music Composer
Four young women continue the journey toward adulthood that began with "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants." Now three years later, these lifelong friends embark on separate paths for their first year of college and the summer beyond, but remain in touch by sharing their experiences with each other.
Lights, Action, Music
A wonderful journey through the meaning and relevance of film music composition. Featuring great, albeit brief, insights from some of the modern greats.
Infamous
Original Music Composer
While researching his book In Cold Blood, writer Truman Capote develops a close relationship with convicted murderers Dick Hickock and Perry Smith.
The Lake House
Original Music Composer
A lonely doctor who once occupied an unusual lakeside home begins exchanging love letters with its former resident, a frustrated architect. They must try to unravel the mystery behind their extraordinary romance before it's too late.
Oliver Twist
Original Music Composer
Oliver Twist the modern filmed version of Charles Dickens bestseller, a Roman Polanski adaptation. The classic Dickens tale, where an orphan meets a pickpocket on the streets of London. From there, he joins a household of boys who are trained to steal for their master.
Because of Winn-Dixie
Original Music Composer
A girl, abandoned by her mother when she was three, moves to a small town in Florida with her father. There, she adopts an orphaned dog she names Winn-Dixie. The bond between the girl and her special companion brings together the people in a small Florida town and heals her own troubled relationship with her father.
The Manchurian Candidate
Original Music Composer
Years after his squad was ambushed during the Gulf War, Major Ben Marco finds himself having terrible nightmares. He begins to doubt that his fellow squad-mate Sergeant Raymond Shaw, now a vice-presidential candidate, is the hero he remembers him being. As Marco's doubts deepen, Shaw's political power grows, and, when Marco finds a mysterious implant embedded in his back, the memory of what really happened begins to return.
Mona Lisa Smile
Original Music Composer
The story of Katherine Ann Watson, a feminist teacher who studied at UCLA graduate school and in 1953 left her boyfriend behind in Los Angeles, California to teach at Wellesley College, a conservative women's private liberal arts college in Massachusetts, United States.
The Human Stain
Original Music Composer
Coleman Silk is a worldly and admired professor who loses his job after unwittingly making a racial slur. To clear his name, Silk writes a book about the events with his friend and colleague Nathan Zuckerman, who in the process discovers a dark secret Silk has hidden his whole life. All the while, Silk engages in an affair with Faunia Farley, a younger woman whose tormented past threatens to unravel the layers of deception Silk has constructed.
Nicholas Nickleby
Music
Nicholas Nickleby, a young boy in search of a better life, struggles to save his family and friends from the abusive exploitation of his coldheartedly grasping uncle.
The Truth About Charlie
Music
Regina meets charming Joshua while vacationing in Martinique, as she contemplates ending her whirlwind marriage to enigmatic Charlie. Upon her return to Paris, she finds that both her apartment and her bank account have been emptied, and her husband has been murdered. The more Reggie learns, the more she realizes the scope of the puzzle which she must solve to protect herself from ever-increasing danger.
Hart's War
Music
Fourth-generation Army Col. William McNamara is imprisoned in a brutal German POW camp. Still, as the senior-ranking American officer, he commands his fellow inmates, keeping a sense of honor alive in a place where honor is easy to destroy, all under the dangerous eye of the Luftwafe vetran Col. Wilhelm Visser. Never giving up the fight to win the war, McNamara is silently planning, waiting for his moment to strike back at the enemy. A murder in the camp gives him the chance to set a risky plan in motion. With a court martial to keep Visser and the Germans distracted, McNamara orchestrates a cunning scheme to escape and destroy a nearby munitions plant, enlisting the unwitting help of young Lt. Tommy Hart. Together with his men, McNamara uses a hero's resolve to carry out his mission, ultimately forced to weigh the value of his life against the good of his country.
The Emperor's New Clothes
Orchestrator
Napoleon, exiled, devises a plan to retake the throne. He'll swap places with commoner Eugene Lenormand, sneak into Paris, then Lenormand will reveal himself and Napoleon will regain his throne. Things don't go at all well; first, the journey proves more difficult than expected, but more disastrously, Lenormand enjoys himself too much to reveal the deception. Napoleon adjusts somewhat uneasily to the life of a commoner while waiting, while Lenormand gorges on rich food.
The Emperor's New Clothes
Original Music Composer
Napoleon, exiled, devises a plan to retake the throne. He'll swap places with commoner Eugene Lenormand, sneak into Paris, then Lenormand will reveal himself and Napoleon will regain his throne. Things don't go at all well; first, the journey proves more difficult than expected, but more disastrously, Lenormand enjoys himself too much to reveal the deception. Napoleon adjusts somewhat uneasily to the life of a commoner while waiting, while Lenormand gorges on rich food.
The Closer You Get
Music
Irish lads send an ad to the Miami Herald inviting fit and enticing women, between the ages of 20 and 21, to live in their isolated Donegal village. The whole town knows about the ad, and it sharpens everyone's sense of the opportunities for happiness already at hand. Kate, a publican with a young daughter, is separating from her husband and catches the eye of a bachelor sheep farmer. Kieran the butcher realizes that his assistant Siobhan is comely, and then he discovers she's fiery as well. Ollie sends off for Dutch skin magazines that the village postmistress won't release to him. The men, and women, find counsel in their movie-loving priest. Will anyone answer the ad?
Chocolat
Original Music Composer
A mother and daughter move to a small French town where they open a chocolate shop. The town, religious and morally strict, is against them, as they represent free-thinking and indulgence. When a group of Boat Gypsies float down the river, the prejudice of the Mayor leads to a crisis.
The Legend of Bagger Vance
Original Music Composer
World War I has left golfer Rannulph Junuh a poker-playing alcoholic, his perfect swing gone. Now, however, he needs to get it back to play in a tournament to save the financially ravaged golf course of a long-ago sweetheart. Help arrives in the form of mysterious caddy Bagger Vance.
The Cider House Rules
Music
Homer is an orphan who was never adopted, becoming the favorite of orphanage director Dr. Larch. Dr. Larch imparts his full medical knowledge on Homer, who becomes a skilled, albeit unlicensed, physician. But Homer yearns for a self-chosen life outside the orphanage. What will Homer learn about life and love in the cider house? What of the destiny that Dr. Larch has planned for him?
Ratcatcher
Original Music Composer
James Gillespie is 12 years old. The world he knew is changing. Haunted by a secret, he has become a stranger in his own family. He is drawn to the canal where he creates a world of his own. He finds an awkward tenderness with Margaret Anne, a vulnerable 14 year old expressing a need for love in all the wrong ways, and befriends Kenny, who possesses an unusual innocence in spite of the harsh surroundings.
Home Fries
Original Music Composer
Dorian and Angus chase down their womanizing stepfather with a helicopter, frightening him to death. In his effort to cover their tracks, Dorian begins investigating his stepfather's mistress, Sally. She works at a fast-food drive-through, she's pregnant and Dorian quickly falls in love with her. Unfortunately, his scheming mother wants Sally dead. And Sally isn't sure she wants Dorian to be her child's father and also his brother.
Beloved
Music
After Paul D. finds his old slave friend Sethe in Ohio and moves in with her and her daughter Denver, a strange girl comes along by the name of "Beloved". Sethe and Denver take her in and then strange things start to happen...
Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas
Songs
Astonished to find the Beast has a deep-seeded hatred for the Christmas season, Belle endeavors to change his mind on the matter.
Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas
Original Music Composer
Astonished to find the Beast has a deep-seeded hatred for the Christmas season, Belle endeavors to change his mind on the matter.
Addicted to Love
Original Music Composer
Good-natured astronomer Sam is devastated when the love of his life leaves him for a suave Frenchman. He therefore does what every other normal dumpee would do — go to New York and set up home in the abandoned building opposite his ex-girlfriend's apartment, wait until she decides to leave her current lover, and then win her back.
Marvin's Room
Original Music Composer
A leukemia patient attempts to end a 20-year feud with her sister to get her bone marrow.
Emma
Original Music Composer
Emma Woodhouse is a congenial young lady who delights in meddling in other people’s affairs. She is perpetually trying to unite men and women who are utterly wrong for each other. Despite her interest in romance, Emma is clueless about her own feelings, and her relationship with gentle Mr. Knightly.
Emma
Orchestrator
Emma Woodhouse is a congenial young lady who delights in meddling in other people’s affairs. She is perpetually trying to unite men and women who are utterly wrong for each other. Despite her interest in romance, Emma is clueless about her own feelings, and her relationship with gentle Mr. Knightly.
The Adventures of Pinocchio
Original Music Composer
One of puppet-maker Geppetto's creations comes magically to life. This puppet, Pinocchio, has one major desire and that is to become a real boy someday. In order to accomplish this goal he has to learn to act responsibly. This film shows you the adventures on which he learns valuable lessons.
Palookaville
Music
Jerry and his two pals, Russ and Syd, are just looking for some easy money to help them break out of their nowhere lives in their nowhere town. Despite a bungled jewelry store heist which exposes their incompetence as criminals, a fateful event (and an old black-and-white film) convinces them that they can pull off an armored-truck robbery. While they are busy plotting their caper, their dysfunctional families spin out of control, all around them.
To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar
Music
A cross country trip to Hollywood is cut short by an unreliable engine & an unpleasant encounter with law enforcement. With the power of drag, three self proclaimed career-girls bring a bit of much needed beauty to rural middle America!
Smoke
Original Music Composer
Writer Paul Benjamin is nearly hit by a bus when he leaves Auggie Wren's smoke shop. Stranger Rashid Cole saves his life, and soon middle-aged Paul tells homeless Rashid that he wouldn't mind a short-term housemate. Still grieving over his wife's murder, Paul is moved by both Rashid's quest to reconnect with his father and Auggie's discovery that a woman who might be his daughter is about to give birth.
A Pyromaniac's Love Story
Original Music Composer
A pastry boy and the son of a hair-piece mogul become involved in an arson scandal. Sergio is offered a bribe in exchange for taking the blame for the fire that destroys his workplace. Garet, the real arsonist, is apalled that someone else would try to take credit for his act of love. Before long, Sergio and Garet become entangled in a zany love-quadrangle involving Hattie and Stephanie. Written by Brian Whiting
The Road to Wellville
Original Music Composer
An unhappy young couple visit the infamous Kellogg spa in Battle Creek, Michigan while a young hustler tries get into the breakfast-cereal business and compete against John Kellogg's corn flakes.
War of the Buttons
Music
War between two Irish youth gangs consists of removing and retrieving buttons from each other's clothing.
Only You
Music
A childhood incident has convinced Faith Corvatch that her true love is a guy named "Damon Bradley," but she has yet to meet him. Preparing to settle down and marry a foot doctor, Faith impulsively flies to Venice when it seems that she may be able to finally encounter the man of her dreams. Instead, she meets the charming Peter Wright. But can they fall in love if she still believes that she is intended to be with someone else?
Great Moments in Aviation
Original Music Composer
The film follows Gabriel Angel (Rakie Ayola), a young Caribbean aviator who falls in love with the forger Duncan Stewart (Jonathan Pryce) on her journey to England. Stewart is pursued by his nemesis Rex Goodyear (John Hurt), and the group are supported by Dr Angela Bead (Vanessa Redgrave) and Miss Gwendolyn Quim (Dorothy Tutin), retired missionaries who become lovers during the voyage.
Sirens
Original Music Composer
In 1930s Australia, Anglican clergyman Anthony Campion and his prim wife, Estella, are asked to visit noted painter Norman Lindsay, whose planned contribution to an international art exhibit is considered blasphemous. While Campion and Lindsay debate, Estella finds herself drawn to the three beautiful models sitting for the painter's current work, freethinking Sheela, sensual Pru and virginal Giddy.
The Joy Luck Club
Original Music Composer
Through a series of flashbacks, four Chinese women born in America and their respective mothers born in feudal China explore their pasts.
Friends
Music
The beginning of the end of the apartheid era in South Africa is seen through the perspectives of three female friends: Sophie, who is of English descent; Aninka, who is an Afrikaner; and Thoko, who is black.
Benny & Joon
Original Music Composer
A mentally ill young woman finds her love in an eccentric man who models himself after Buster Keaton.
Ethan Frome
Music
Married couple, Ethan and Zeena, are in need an extra hand around the house due to Zeena's debilitated body and constant illness. The young woman who joins them is a beautiful, spirited person. She and Ethan fall in love much to the dismay of Zeena.
Used People
Original Music Composer
At her husband's funeral, Pearl, Jewish mother of two divorced and antagonistic daughters, meets an old Italian friend of her husband, whose advice years previously had stopped the husband leaving home. For 23 years he, now a widower, has secretly loved Pearl...
Rebecca's Daughters
Music
Young aristocrat Anthony Raine returns home from India to find the farmers of Pembrokeshire protesting about the rates of a tollgate run by The Whitman Turnpike Trust, headed by the drunken Lord Sarn. So Raine dons a mask and, calling himself Rebecca, instructs his followers to dress as women as they attack the tolls, leading the common people to victory over their masters.
Elizabeth R
Music
Join the BBC cameras as they go behind the glitter of Buckingham Palace and the pomp of Windsor Castle for a close-up look at the minutia of the monarchy. Culled from a year of unprecedented access to Queen Elizabeth II, the documentary trails the queen as she interacts one-on-one with her family, her staff, her public, and international heads of state. Go behind closed doors for Christmas with the royal family, eavesdrop on cocktail chatter with Ron and Nancy Reagan, and catch unguarded moments when the queen pilots her own jeep or romps with her dogs. Elizabeth R. is a once-in-a-lifetime glimpse into the everyday life of a queen.
Where Angels Fear to Tread
Music
An English widow goes to Italy, falls in love with a dentist's son and marries him, against her straitlaced family's wishes.
Life Is Sweet
Music
Just north of London live Wendy, Andy, and their twenty-something twins, Natalie and Nicola. Wendy clerks in a shop, Andy is a cook who forever puts off home remodeling projects, Natalie is a plumber and Nicola is jobless. This film is about how they interact and play out family, conflict and love.
Shoot To Kill
Music
Shoot to Kill is a four-hour drama documentary reconstruction of the events that led to the 1984–86 Stalker Inquiry into the shooting of six terrorist suspects in Northern Ireland in 1982 by a specialist unit of the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), allegedly without warning (the so-called shoot-to-kill policy); the organised fabrication of false accounts of the events; and the difficulties created for the inquiry team in their investigation.
Sometime in August
Music
Neil's beach holiday with the Middleton family turns sour over his refusal to bathe. The situation is resolved by an old woman and a cat.
The Widowmaker
Music
The Widowmaker is a 1990 made for television film starring Annabelle Apsion, Alun Armstrong, David Morrissey and Kenneth Welsh. The film deals with a woman whose husband has been arrested after going on a killing rampage and the reaction of her local community. It was produced In the United Kingdom by Central Independent Television for the ITV Network and aired on 29 December 1990. It received a nomination for Best Single Drama at the 1991 BAFTA Awards.
The Woman in Black
Original Music Composer
When a friendless old widow dies in the seaside town of Crythin, a young solicitor is sent by his firm to settle the estate. The lawyer finds the townspeople reluctant to talk about or go near the woman's dreary home and no one will explain or even acknowledge the menacing woman in black he keeps seeing.
The Short & Curlies
Original Music Composer
A short comedy by Mike Leigh about the romance between a young woman and a man who communicates only through jokes and humor...
1914 All Out
Original Music Composer
A village cricket team plays its last match before most of its players go off to fight in World War I, confident that "it will all be over by Christmas".
Four Days in July
Music
Two couples, one Catholic, one Protestant, exist on two sides of the chasm that is everyday life in Northern Ireland.
Last Day of Summer
Music
A young woman moves into a hippy commune and spends an idyllic summer with the young brother of one of the residents.