Lion (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) is the soundtrack album to the 2016 film Lion. The album mostly features musical score composed by Dustin O'Halloran and Volker Bertelmann, known by the stage name Hauschka. This film marked their joint collaboration together in scoring films. The score consisted of piano, accompanied by strings, percussions and a minimal orchestra, to produce the score in a "subtle and restrained manner", to convey the emotions of Saroo, the film's protagonist. The score album, also featured a promotional single, "Never Give Up" by Sia. The album was distributed by Sony Classical Records and released in digital formats on 25 November 2016, and through CDs on 23 December. A vinyl edition of the album also released on 17 March 2017.
The score by O'Halloran and Hauschka received critical acclaim and featured in several year-end and decade-end lists of best film scores. The score also received nominations at various award ceremonies, including Academy, Golden Globe, BAFTA and Critics' Choice awards under the "Best Original Score" category, but lost all the awards to Justin Hurwitz for his score in La La Land (2016). However, O'Halloran and Hauschka won the AACTA Award for Best Original Music Score at the 7th AACTA Awards held in December 2017.
Background
Both Hauschka and O'Halloran were good friends and had been collaborated in several of his concerts, Hauschka said "We had spent a lot of time in each other’s world, and the thought of us making music together was pretty exciting because we’d been friends for so long." Davis approached Hauschka at one of his concerts in Melbourne and queried on his interest in scoring the film, though he later revealed on O'Halloran's involvement. Initially, Davis planned to assign each composer, a discrete portion of the film. Hauschka was assigned to score for the portions set in India, while O'Halloran would compose for the rest of the sequences. The plan was later scrapped as Davis wanted a "more holistic approach".
The composers recorded the score individually, with Hauschka recording his portions in Germany, and O'Halloran in Los Angeles. The latter said, in an interview to Deadline Hollywood, "You have to know that you can sit in a room with somebody, and feel comfortable, and get into it. We have such a respect for each other’s music that I don’t think we ever felt like it was a battle of ideas. We both wanted to do the best for the film, and Garth also had a very clear vision of what he wanted, so we were always trying to work together to find the best ideas, and the things that would resonate the most." The score was recording within two months, due to the hectic release schedules.
Recording and composition
O'Halloran and Hauschka recorded the score in "restrained and subtle way" to add nuances to the scenes. Davis wanted two pianists to complete the score, as the piano was an important instrumentation used while producing temp music. Both composers, decided to strip down the piano music, hence, strings were accompanied in the score in a "very quiet manner". A string quarter and an orchestra chamber ensemble assisted the score, while O'Halloran and Hauschka limited the use of electronics, and also used two pre-recorded piano sounds. They called it as "quite challenging to find diverse sounds of that instrument". O'Halloran added "To create the power and the emotional impact that we needed to happen in the film with a few elements means that the performances are vital, and the way it’s recorded is vital. It was a lot of trial and error we had to go through to find the right space—it’s such a curated score."
Davis was not attracted to the use of traditional Indian sounds in the first half and transitioning to a Western palette in the second half, as according to Hauschka, "separating the ‘Indian part’ would have given the first half such a weird, detached, folky element [...] The theme of the movie is more general than that — it’s a longing for home, for identity, for finding the kind of place where you feel safe."