Roque Baños: Backroads (Carreteras secundarias), 1997 / Suite

ABOUT THE SCORE: Gifted Spanish composer Roque Baños landed his first feature assignment with 1997's "Backroads", a Spanish dramedy in which a father/son duo travel about the Mediterranean coast. Banos responds to the tale with a sweeping, overtly "Daphnis et Chloe"-inspired title theme that's full of sunny, ravishing harmonies, and later allows some more contemporary elements to enter the score for regional color (the film is set in the mid-70's). This early effort wears influences ranging from Legrand to Gershwin - and, of course, Ravel - on its sleeve, as many young composers do before they find their own voice, but it is nonetheless a wonderful score that showed how much talent and promise Baños possessed from the onset of his career.
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