| Éric Serra | |
|---|---|
| Birth name | Éric Serra |
| Born | 9 September 1959 near Paris, France |
| Origin | Paris |
| Genres | Pop, dance, electronic |
| Occupations | Songwriter, record producer, composer, President of EuroVoice European Music Contest |
| Instruments | Guitar, percussion, drums |
| Years active | 1970–present |
| Labels | RXRA |
| Website | www.ericserra.com |
Éric Serra (born on 9 September 1959) is a French composer. He has often worked on the movies of Luc Besson.
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Éric Serra's father Claude was a famous French songwriter in the 1950s and '60s, and, as such, Éric was exposed to music and its production at a young age. His mother died when he was just seven years old. In the early '80s, Serra met director Luc Besson and was asked to score his first movie Le Dernier Combat (1983). Serra has scored all of Besson's directed movies to date, except Angel-A (2005) (scored by Anja Garbarek), and several that Besson has written such as Wasabi.
In 1995, Éric Serra was chosen to compose the score to the James Bond film GoldenEye, and produced a much more modern-sounding avant-garde soundtrack compared to previous Bond films. It met with mixed reviews from film critics. Serra's score is often criticized by Bond fans, and is considered the farthest departure from a traditional Bond score and the most inappropriate in the series history. The producers later hired John Altman to provide the music for the tank chase in St. Petersburg. Serra's original track for that sequence can still be found on the soundtrack as "A Pleasant Drive In St. Petersburg".
Occasionally, and mainly due to his album released by this name, he is known in credits as RXRA (pronounced like his name, in French). An example is "Little Light of Love" on The Fifth Element soundtrack, which is credited to RXRA.
From 1980 to 1988, Éric Serra played bass guitar for French singer Jacques Higelin.
Éric Serra is also a songwriter, notably having written "It's Only Mystery" for the film Subway and "My Lady Blue" for Le Grand Bleu. In 1988, Éric Serra released an album of rock music titled RXRA which resembles the artist's name when pronounced as initial letters in French.
Most recently he composed the music for the new Criss Angel/Cirque Du Soleil show 'Criss Angel: Believe' to open at the Luxor Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada, in October 2008.
Serra has spent little time in front of the camera, choosing to work behind the scenes instead. However, on French television he has made a number of appearances performing music, and notably appeared in the Luc Besson movie Subway in which he plays 'Enrico the bassist'.
Éric Serra has created the scores for the following movies:
| Preceded by Michael Kamen 1989 |
James Bond film score composer 1995 |
Succeeded by David Arnold 1997— |