Iconic Italian film composer Ennio Morricone passed away on July 7 at the age of 91. Active as a musician and composer from the late-1940s (!) all the way up to his death, Morricone ranks among the most acclaimed artists in the medium of film music. However, it’s safe to say, as the iconoclastic New York composer John Zorn asserted in his New York Times obituary/tribute, that the influence of Morricone's work moved far beyond the paradigm of film scoring and that he should rightly be considered one of the greatest composers of the 20th century, full stop.