Underworld to be music directors for Olympic opening ceremony

Underworld have been announced as Music Directors for the Opening Ceremony of London 2012 Olympics.

The duo of Rick Smith and Karl Hyde will work alongside Oscar winning British filmmaker and producer Danny Boyle (the Artistic Director of the Opening Ceremony) and will be responsible for all the music in the three-hour ceremony taking place on Friday 27th July next summer.

Karl Hyde said, "We want to leave people with a musical memory of the show rather than a purely visual one. It's a great honour to be asked to do this and one we're taking very seriously – it's certainly not something we'll get the chance to do again."

Danny Boyle added, "Appointing Underworld to direct the music in the Olympic Opening Ceremony is the final piece of the jigsaw for the team of leading British creatives who will deliver the ceremonies."

The Underworld and Danny Boyle partnership first arose when Underworld's track 'Born Slippy' featured in Boyle's film 'Trainspotting'. Over the following fifteen years the three developed a close relationship, with Smith and Hyde supplying music for 'A Life Less Ordinary', 'The Beach' and co-scoring the 2007 sci-fi film 'Sunshine'. In 2010 they came together again to work on the National Theatre production of 'Frankenstein'.

The London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games (LOCOG) has put in place a talented team of leading British creatives to lead the direction of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic ceremonies.

In May 2010 Stephen Daldry, Mark Fisher, Hamish Hamilton, and Catherine Ugwu, were appointed as Executive Producers across all four Ceremonies, and Danny Boyle, was appointed as Artistic Director for the Olympic Games Opening Ceremony.

In February 2011 Take That's creative director Kim Gavin was appointed Artistic Director for the Closing Ceremonies of both the Olympic and Paralympic Games. He was joined by multi-award-winning stage and costume designer Es Devlin and Bond film composer and record producer David Arnold as part of the Closing Ceremonies team.

In June 2011 Jenny Sealey MBE and Bradley Hemmings were appointed as Artistic Directors of the Opening Ceremony of the London 2012 Paralympic Games.

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