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Michael Cunningham's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Hours has been made into a film starring Meryl Streep, Julianne Moore, Nicole Kidman, and Ed Harris. Directed by Stephen Daldry (Billy Elliot), with screenplay by David Hare, The Hours tells the story of three women searching for more potent, meaningful lives - a book editor in New York (Meryl Streep), a young mother in California (Julianne Moore) and the author Virginia Woolf (Nicole Kidman). Their stories intertwine, and finally come together in a surprising, transcendent moment of shared recognition.

The orchestral music for this film is by Philip Glass, who has created a score that unites the film's three stories 'like tributaries that flow into the same stream, utilizing an emotional and haunting musical theme that underlies the entire film'.

The Hours has received seven Golden Globe nominations including Best Original Score for Philip Glass's music.

The American composer Philip Glass studied with Vincent Persichetti, Darius Milhaud and William Bergsma before moving to Paris to study with Nadia Boulanger. He subsequently became interested in eastern music and began to apply eastern techniques to his own work. In 1976 he composed the music to Einstein on the Beach, a four-and-a-half hour music theatre epic. Other works include the operas Satyagraha and Akhnaten and the film scores Koyaanisqatsi, Mishima and The Thin Blue Line. He has collaborated with David Byrne, Paul Simon, Laurie Anderson, Suzanne Vega and Ravi Shankar.

A Paramount Pictures/Miramax Films release, The Hours is currently playing in selected cities in the USA, will go nationwide on 17 January 2003 and will première in the UK on 14 February 2003. The Hours soundtrack is released on Nonesuch on 10 February 2003 (one CD, full price, catalogue number 7559-79693-2). Glass's 1999 score for Martin Scorsese's Kundun (also on Nonesuch) contributed significantly to the film's impact, and sold over 100,000 CDs worldwide.

Posted: 9 January 2003

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