- Father of Rizia Ortolani.
- After forming his own orchestra, he moved to Los Angeles and performed at the famous night club Ciro's on the Sunset Strip.
- Internationally, he is best known for his genre scores, notably his music for mondo, giallo, horror, and Spaghetti Western films.
- Best known for his romantic string-laden scores and his guitar compositions for a trio of Quentin Tarantino films: "Kill Bill", "Inglorious Basterds" and "Django Unchained".
- Studied at the Conservatorio Statale di Musica in Pesaro and began his career as a musical arranger for the orchestra of the Italian network RAI.
- Set up the Pesaro Riz Ortolani Foundation in order to promote music through scholarships, seminars, concerts and exhibitions.
- His composition ' More' was recorded by more than one thousand of the greatest artists in the world with 70 million records sold. Ortolani was the fist Italian musician to receive such wide ranging, large recognition repeatedly over the years, both in Italy and abroad.
- Strongly artistic, multifaceted, innovative, can best describe Riz Ortolani's personality, composer and orchestra director with a production background that spans from the cinema to the theatre, from classical music to television programs.
- In later years he scored many films for Italian director Pupi Avati.
- Though the chronology is unclear, he also likely served as a musician in the Italian Air Force orchestra, formed a Jazz ensemble, and came to the United States as a Jazz musician in Hollywood, all before scoring his first film.
- His most famous composition is "More," which he wrote for the infamous film Mondo Cane. It won the 1964 Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Theme and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song at the 36th Academy Awards. The song was later covered by Frank Sinatra, Kai Winding, Andy Williams, Roy Orbison, and others.
- The success of the soundtrack of Mondo Cane led Ortolani to score films in England and the United States such as The Yellow Rolls-Royce (1964), The Spy with a Cold Nose (1966), The Biggest Bundle of Them All (1968) and Buona Sera, Mrs. Campbell (1968).
- The main song in the movie Mondo Cane, 'More', was sung by his wife Katyna Ranieri.
- In 2004, at the "Maggio Musicale Fiorentino", his first ballet is presented by the title In Una Parte di Cielo, inspired by the life of Michelangelo.
- In 2001, in the Rossini Theater of Pesaro, the first symphony piece was performed: Sinfonia della Memoria (Symphony of Memory).
- He studied at the Conservatorio Statale di Musica "Gioachino Rossini" in his hometown of Pesaro before moving to Rome in 1948 and finding work with the RAI orchestra.
- He scored over 200 films and television programs between 1955 and 2014, with a career spanning over fifty years.
- In 2013, he received a Lifetime Achievement from the World Soundtrack Academy.
- Ortolani received many other accolades, including four David di Donatello Awards, three Nastro d'Argento Awards, and a Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song.
- Not yet twenty, after graduating from the Gioachino Rossini Conservatory in Pesaro, his city, he moved to Rome, where he joined a group of young instrumentalists of the RAI orchestra. He soon stood out to the company managers, who assigned him to direct a jazz-symphony orchestra, resulting in immediate popularity.
- He also scored the 1972 film The Valachi Papers, directed by Terence Young and starring Charles Bronson.
- He was the youngest of six children.
- He was an Italian composer, conductor, and orchestrator, predominantly of film scores.
- Ortolani's father, a postal worker, gave his son a violin at age 4. Ortolani later switched to flute after injuring his elbow in a car accident.
- His tour of Japan directing the Vienna Symphony Orchestra was memorable.
- Collaborations with the American Studios (MGM, United Artist, Universal) and with directors like Vittorio De Sica, Dino Risi, Franco Zeffirelli, Terence Young, Edward Dmytryk were extremely important; as well as long and fruitful artistic associations with Damiano Damiani and Pupi Avati.
- Among his scores, some achieved veritable "cult" status: from Mondo Cane to The Easy Life, from Anzio to Farewell Africa, from The Yellow Rolls Royce to Women of the World, from Valachi Papers to Brother Sun, Sister Moon, up to the more recent Ma Quando Arrivano Le Ragazze, La Rivincita di Natale, Il Papà di Giovanna, Una Sconfinata Giovinezza.
- In 2007, in Pesaro, with his wife Katina Ranieri, he established the Riz Ortolani Foundation to promote music through scholarships, seminars, discussions, concerts and exhibitions.
- During the course of his long career, Ortolani directed prestigious symphonies such as the London, Berlin, Houston, Rio de Janeiro, Mexico, the Fenice in Venice, the Sinfonica of the Teatro dell'Opera in Rome, the Regio of Turin and the Philharmonique of Monte Carlo.
- In 1962 he was one of the few Italian composers - if not the only one - to be called directly by American studios to work on international soundtracks.
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