FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

OSCARS ROYALTY COURTS THE DUCHESS

Soundtrack Features Original Music by Academy Award® Winner Rachel Portman

(September 15, 2008- Los Angeles, CA) - Lakeshore Records will release the
soundtrack for THE DUCHESS, available via iTunes and in stores on September 16.
The soundtrack contains original music composed by Rachel Portman (Emma, The
Cider House Rules). Academy Award® nominees Keira Knightley (Atonement) and
Ralph Fiennes (The English Patient, Schindler's List) head the international
cast, which also includes Dominic Cooper (The History Boys), and Charlotte
Rampling (Swimming Pool). The film is based on Amanda Foreman's biography of
Georgiana Cavendish, the scandalous Duchess of Devonshire.

In 1996 Rachel Portman became the first female composer to win an Academy Award®
for her score to the film Emma. The British composer studied at the University
of Oxford. She earned the British Film Institute's Young Composer of the Year
Award in 1989 for the mini-series "Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit".

After several years composing for TV movies and BBC series she scored her first
Hollywood feature film with 1992s Used People. Since then she has composed
music for a variety of films including The Joy Luck Club, Benny & Joon, Emma,
The Cider House Rules, The Legend of Bagger Vance, Chocolat, and more recently
Infamous, The Lake House, Mona Lisa Smile, and The Sisterhood of the Traveling
Pants 2.

THE DUCHESS is based on the story of an extraordinary woman who rose to fame by
staying true to her passions in a world of protocol, gossip and social rules -
and paid the price.

Long before the concept existed, the Duchess of Devonshire (Knightey) was the
original 'it girl'. Like her direct descendant Princess Diana, she was
ravishing, glamorous, and adored by an entire country. Determined to be a
player in the wider affairs of the world, she proved that she could out-gamble,
out-drink, and outwit most of the aristocratic men who surrounded her. But even
as her own power and popularity grew, she was haunted by the fact that the only
man in England she seemingly could not seduce was her very own husband, the Duke
(Fiennes). And when she tried to find her own way to be true to her heart and
loyal to her duty, the resulting controversies and convoluted liaisons pushed
her to the brink of risking banishment by her husband, family and all of London
society.

Paramount Vantage presents THE DUCHESS in theaters on September 19, 2008. THE
DUCHESS original soundtrack on Lakeshore Records will be available via iTunes
and in stores on September 16.

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For more information contact: cinemediapromo@...

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