On April 23rd, 2017, 18-time All-Star and 2008 NBA MVP winner, Kobe Bryant premiered his animated short film, Dear Basketball, at the Tribeca Film Festival. To deliver the film’s score, Bryant trusted no one else other than legendary composer John Williams, who the basketball star had been a fan of since childhood admitting that he, as a boy, ran around to the “Superman theme” with a towel around his neck.

The most commonly asked question an artist will hear is, “Where does the influence come from?” My answer has never been as romanticized as most expect. It doesn’t come from the popular clichés, i.e. unrequited love or sitting in a room alone being struck with idea after idea. More accurately it’s collaboration—the centerpiece for all music careers.

There are many works from the concert hall that film music pays homage to (and vice-versa). We can here the influences of Stravinsky in John Williams, Bartók in Danny Elfman, the list goes on. As the art of film scoring continues to grow we can’t loose sight of its roots to history. Here are some obvious, and not-so-obvious, concert works that can be used for film score study.

There’s at least one album we can name from our teenage years that put us on the path to what we listen to today. For composers the equivalent are works that changed the trajectory of artistic identity. I can list mine effortlessly. Here’s my big 4 that, for me, are indispensable.

Classical music lives on because of the artists who dared to be different. They challenged the status quo and broke down the walls their predecessors built. However the payment that comes to those who take these risks is their reputation, the respect their community gives them only to take it back.