Lakeshore Records will release the AMERICAN PASTORAL – Original Motion Picture Soundtrack both digitally and on CD October 21, 2016 concurrent with the Lakeshore Entertainment film’s theatrical release by Lionsgate (NYSE: LGF).  The album features an original score from the Academy Award®-winning composer Alexandre Desplat (THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL, ARGO, THE KING’S SPEECH).

“I always like to work on the opening of a film to find my way through it. As if I was sitting in the audience in a theater,” Desplat explained.  “Two themes evolve through the film as the characters do. The emotional path Swede, our hero is going through was the lighthouse guiding us.  Merry drifting away from her family was the other one.”

Based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning Philip Roth novel, AMERICAN PASTORAL follows an all American family across several decades, as their idyllic existence is shattered by social and political turmoil that will change the fabric of American culture forever. Ewan McGregor (Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, Beginners) makes his directorial debut and stars as Seymour “Swede” Levov, a once legendary high school athlete who is now a successful businessman married to Dawn, a former beauty queen. But turmoil brews beneath the polished veneer of Swede’s life. When his beloved daughter, Merry, disappears after being accused of committing a violent act, Swede dedicates himself to finding her and reuniting his family. What he discovers shakes him to the core, forcing him to look beneath the surface and confront the chaos that is shaping the modern world around him: no American family will ever be the same.  AMERICAN PASTORAL also stars Academy Award® winner Jennifer Connelly (A Beautiful Mind) as Dawn, Dakota Fanning (The Runaways, The Twilight Saga) as Merry, Emmy® winner Uzo Aduba (Orange Is the New Black), and Academy Award® nominee David Strathairn (Lincoln, Good Night, and Good Luck).

The director himself got into the action.  Desplat described, “Ewan is a brilliant French horn player and we felt the sound of the French horn could give both the sense of the epic and of the solitude of Swede’s journey through life.”

Oscar®-winning composer Alexandre Desplat is one of the most coveted film composers in the world today. Desplat is noted for his collaborations with some of the world’s top filmmakers: Wes Anderson, George Clooney, Stephen Daldry, David Fincher, Stephen Frears, Tom Hooper, Ang Lee, Terrence Malick, Roman Polanski and Angelina Jolie garnering eight Academy Award nominations. Desplat first captivated American ears with THE GIRL WITH THE PEARL EARRING andBIRTH. The Golden Globe and Oscar winner has since scored a range of incredible films, eight of which have been Oscar-nominated: THE QUEEN, THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON, FANTASTIC MR. FOX, THE KING’S SPEECH, ARGO, PHILOMENA, THE IMITATION GAME and THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL which won the 2015 Oscar for Best Score.

Desplat’s most recent work includes Angelina Jolie’s Unbroken, Wes Anderson’s THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL, THE IMITATION GAME, SUFFRAGETTE directed by Sarah Gavron and starring Helena Bonham Carter and Meryl Streep, his second collaboration with Tom Hooper (THE KING’S SPEECH) THE DANISH GIRL starring Eddie Redmayne and Illumination Entertainment’s recent box office hit, THE SECRET LIFE OF PETS starring Lake Bell and Kevin Hart. Coming up next for Desplat is the period drama THE LIGHT BETWEEN OCEANS directed by Derek Cianfrance starring Michael Fassbender, FLORENCE FOSTER JENKINS starring Rebecca Ferguson and Meryl Streep, and Disney’s ROGUE ONE: A STAR WARS STORY starring Felicity Jones and Mads Mikkelsen.

Born to a Greek mother and French father, Desplat grew up in France with a budding love for Hollywood film music, and broke into the French film industry in the 1980s. With a penchant for lyricism, elegant orchestrations, and precise dramatization, Desplat has quickly joined the pantheon of all-time greats. “I was in a car with a friend who had offered me a double vinyl of Star Wars,” Desplat remembers. “It might have been ’78. He gave me this record, and I remember having said to him, ‘Hmm. Music composed and conducted by John Williams. That’s what I want to do.’  And that’s what I’m doing.”

Lionsgate and Lakeshore Entertainment present AMERICAN PASTORAL in theaters starting October 21, 2016. Lakeshore Records will release the AMERICAN PASTORAL – Original Motion Picture Soundtrack both digitally and on CD October 21, 2016.

1. Swede’s Story
2. Riots
3. Rita Cohen
4. Meeting Rita
5. Hotel Albaugh
6. Chasing the Van
7. Dawn
8. FBI search
9. The Vow
10. Merry’s Story
11. Swede & Merry
12. Merry’s Things
13. Fix Your Dress
14. Swede Grabs Sheila
15. Reunited
16. Kaddish for Seymour
17. Moon River – Priscilla Ahn