Pictured above: Angelo Badalamenti (right) accepts the ASCAP Henry Mancini Award from Paul Williams (left) and David Lynch at the 2011 ASCAP Film & TV Music Awards

Angelo Badalamenti, the beloved composer best known for his enduring collaboration with filmmaker David Lynch, has died at the age of 85.

Throughout their three-decade partnership, Badalamenti was tasked with translating the dark, often menacing vision of David Lynch into music. His themes and underscore were crucial components of Twin Peaks, Blue Velvet, Mulholland Drive and more, setting the unsettling mood and offering thematic throughlines.

Badalamenti earned a Grammy for his theme to Twin Peaks, two World Soundtrack Awards including a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2008, and the ASCAP Henry Mancini Award in 2011, presented to him by Lynch.

“Angelo Badalamenti was a master at conveying complex layers of emotion through music,” ASCAP President & Chairman Paul WIlliams said. “His scores were the beating heart of the nightmarish cinematic worlds he built with David Lynch, and no matter the project, Angelo brought musical sophistication and ideas in spades. He was a world-class composer and a gracious, gentle human being. All of us at ASCAP will miss you, Angelo.”

Badalamenti was born in Brooklyn, trained as a pianist and French horn player in high school, and attended both Eastman School of Music and Manhattan School of Music. During summer breaks, he would accompany lounge singers in the Catskills, which encouraged him to learn a huge variety of music in a short amount of time, a talent that would help in his composing career.

In the ‘60s, Badalamenti worked as a staff songwriter for a music publisher, and several of his songs were cut by singing stars like Shirley Bassey, Nina Simone, Nancy Wilson and Mel Tillis. Songs were often high points in his work for screen, for example “Mysteries of Love” from Blue Velvet (later released on Julee Cruise’s solo album Floating into the Night) and the ethereal “Falling,” which doubled as the iconic theme to Twin Peaks. Performers from David Bowie to Roberta Flack, Liza Minnelli to LL Cool J would end up working with him.

While his work for screen stretches back to the ‘60s, Badalamenti’s big break as a composer came in 1986 when a young David Lynch hired him as a vocal coach for actress Isabella Rosselini, who needed to sing the title song of Blue Velvet. Lynch was happy enough with the recording that he hired Badalamenti to handle the rest of the film’s music.

Badalamenti’s music often inspired Lynch’s filmmaking. “David’s visuals are very influenced by the music,” Badalamenti told The New York Times in 2005. “The tempo of music helps him set the tempo of the actors and their dialogue and how they move. He would sit next to me at a keyboard describing what he was thinking as I would improvise the score. Almost all of Twin Peaks was written without me seeing a single frame, at least in the pilot.”

Blue Velvet was the beginning of a collaboration that yielded memorable music for Wild at Heart, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, Lost Highway, The Straight Story, Mulholland Drive, the web series Rabbits and the third season of Twin Peaks from 2017. Badalamenti and Lynch also collaborated on the outré concert music piece Industrial Symphony No. 1, and released an album of oddball acid jazz called Thought Gang in 2018, originally recorded in the early ‘90s.

Many other filmmakers and showrunners brought on Badalamenti to elevate their projects. He was a favorite collaborator of Paul Schrader (Auto Focus, The Comfort of Strangers), worked with Jean-Pierre Jeunet on The City of Lost Children and A Very Long Engagement (2004), and scored films by Jane Campion (Holy Smoke), Danny Boyle (The Beach) and many more.

In addition to his film work, Badalamenti wrote themes for Inside the Actors Studio and Profiler. He even wrote the “Torch Theme” that kicked off the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona, with an archer shooting a flaming arrow accompanied by Badalamenti’s horns, strings and a wordless choir.

In his daily weather report for December 12, 2022, David Lynch eschewed his usual music recommendation. “Today, no music” he said – a tacit memorial to his great friend and collaborator.

Thank you, Angelo, for leaving us an incredible legacy of unforgettable music.