Eric Serra

Eric Serra, the French composer celebrated for his film scores, came into the world on September 9, 1959, in Saint-Mandé, Île-de-France. His professional path opened in the mid- to late 1970s when he performed as guitarist and bassist alongside various French pop and rock groups. By the early 1980s he had become the bassist for singer/songwriter Jacques Higelin, then among the nation’s leading pop and rock figures. At roughly the same period he entered into an enduring partnership with director Luc Besson that commenced with the short L’Avant Dernier (1981). Serra went on to score every subsequent Besson project, whether directed or written by the filmmaker: Le Dernier Combat (1983), Subway (1985), Kamikaze (1986), Le Grand Bleu (1988), Nikita (1990), Atlantis (1991), Léon (1994), The Fifth Element (1997), The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc (1999), Wasabi (2001), and Arthur et les Minimoys (2006). Beyond that collaboration he supplied the inventive score for the James Bond installment GoldenEye (1995). In 1989 he received a César, France’s highest film honor, for Le Grand Bleu, and earned additional César nominations for his music in Subway, Nikita, Léon, The Fifth Element, and The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc. A 1996 anthology, La Musique des Films, gathered highlights from his cinematic output. His debut solo album, the pop/rock recording R.X.R.A., appeared in 1998.