Italian composer Morricone cancels Rome concerts

MILAN – Oscar-winning composer Ennio Morricone has cancelled concerts at Rome’s Santa Cecilia national academy because of collapsed vertebrae.

A statement that appeared on Santa Cecilia’s website on Wednesday says that doctors ordered bed rest for the 87-year-old Morricone until the end of June.

Concerts that Morricone was to conduct later this month will be substituted with the showing of the film version of Leonard Bernstein’s “West Side Story,” accompanied by the Santa Cecilia National Academy orchestra performing the musical score live.

Morricone landed his first competitive Academy Award this year for “The Hateful Eight,” following his honorary Oscar in 2007. The Italian composer has created some of cinema’s most-recognizable music, scoring Sergio Leone’s Spaghetti Westerns such as “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.”