Ludwig Göransson won two competitive awards for his work on Sinners at the 2026 Society of Composers & Lyricists Awards, which were held on Friday (Feb. 6) at the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles. The Swedish composer wonoutstanding original score for a studio film and outstanding original song for a dramatic or documentary visual media production for “I Lied to You” which he co-wrote with Raphael Saadiq.

In addition, Göransson and director Ryan Coogler received the Spirit of Collaboration Award, the SCL’s most distinctive and meaningful award, which recognizes a composer/director partnership that has created a significant and enduring body of work. Since their first collaboration on Coogler’s Fruitvale Station (2013), Göransson has scored all of Coogler’s feature films as a director — Creed (2015), Black Panther (2018), Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022), and Sinners (2025). Göransson has received four of his five Oscar nominations for work on Coogler films. This year, he is Oscar-nominated for both best original score and best original song for “I Lied to You.”

Göransson accepted the award for the pair because Coogler had a family emergency and couldn’t attend. “I met Ryan Coogler very early on in my life,” he said. “I was about 23 years old. I had just moved to LA from Sweden. I didn’t know anyone. We met at a party. We played pool together, and we instantly just started talking about music. He knew a lot about Swedish artists and Swedish music and we started talking about music and he told me was in the directing program. And I didn’t think much more about it until a couple of months later, when he reached out and asked if I would like to score his first short film, which was locks.

“And I remember when I played him the first cue from our first student film, Ryan heard the music, and he just jumped out of his seat. And in a way, it kind of still feels like that when we work together. I still feel like we’re those same kids. When we work together, we have the same kind of shared excitement for the project.

Göransson said the pair especially bonded on Sinners, when they both moved to New Orleans with their families for the three-month shoot. “You know, being there with Ryan, with Serena [Göransson’s wife and the film’s executive music producer], with Zinzi [Coogler’s wife] and with our families really made it feel like such a partnership. And I think that’s what’s so special about working with working with Ryan. He feels like a true partner.”

The Bacon Brothers, consisting of actor-musician Kevin Bacon and his older brother, composer Michael Bacon, cohosted the seventh annual SCL Awards. They performed a few songs, including Kenny Loggins’ “Footloose,” the title song from the 1984 film that made Kevin Bacon a star, and The Isley Brothers’ “Shout,” which was memorably featured in the 1978 film Animal House, which was Bacon’s first film.

The SCL Awards ceremony comes at nearly the midpoint between the announcement of the Oscar nominations on Jan. 22 and the opening of first-round Oscar voting on Feb. 26, which makes it an important stop on the Oscar campaign trail.

EJAE and Mark Sonnenblick won outstanding original song for a comedy or musical for “Golden” from KPop Demon Hunters. The win marks the latest accolade for the global smash, which has already received a Grammy, Golden Globe and Critics Choice Award, and is widely seen as the front-runner to win the Oscar.

 “Songwriting and music composing is a form of coping with human feelings,” EJAE said in accepting the award. “And songwriting helped me get through getting dropped by a label. Fast forward to right now with ‘Golden,’ it helped so many people get through hard times. I have had so many fans come up to me talking about that, you know, helping them get through depression. And so, it just goes to show that even though this song was written for a fictional animation film, the effect it had on people is real.”

Sonnenblick added: “This is a movie that is all about collaboration. In the movie, it’s not ‘I’m going up up up,’ it’s ‘we’re going up up up,’ and that’s the only way it happens. We are all collaborators in different ways. It’s just an honor to be in a room of collaborators and to be up here together accepting this award.”

Train Dreams composer Bryce Dessner won outstanding original score for an independent film. Dessner’s score was not nominated for an Oscar, but his title song (co-written with Nick Cave) was nominated for best original song.

Wicked: For Good composer Stephen Schwartz, who tied Göransson with three SCL Awards nods, was shut out at the ceremony.

In television categories, two-time Emmy-winning composer Theodore Shapiro won outstanding original score for a television production for Severance, and Cristóbal Tapia de Veer won outstanding original title sequence for a television production for The White Lotus, his third SCL Award in this category.

Austin Wintory won outstanding original score for interactive media for Sword of the Sea. Composer Ching-Shan Chang was presented with the David Raksin award for emerging talent for her score for Laws of Man.

SCL Awards nominees and winners are determined solely by member composers and songwriters.

The SCL celebrated the 50th anniversary of Rocky with a musical tribute and performance conducted by Oscar-winning composer Bill Conti who scored five films in the Rocky franchise and co-composed its iconic theme song, “Gonna Fly Now,” a No. 1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1977.

Melissa Manchester performed for the In Memoriam segment, singing “I’ll Never Say Goodbye,” the Oscar-nominated from the 1979 film The Promise, written by David Shire and the late Alan Bergman and Marilyn Bergman. Alan Bergman, who died in 2025, was featured during the segment. Manchester sang the song on the film soundtrack and at the Oscar ceremony in 1980.

Here’s the full list of 2026 SCL Award nominees, with winners marked.

Outstanding Original Score for a Studio Film

WINNER: Ludwig Göransson – Sinners

Alexandre Desplat – Frankenstein

Jonny Greenwood – One Battle After Another

Stephen Schwartz & John Powell – Wicked: For Good

Max Richter – Hamnet

Jerskin Fendrix – Bugonia

Outstanding Original Score for an Independent Film

Dara Taylor – Straw

WINNER: Bryce Dessner – Train Dreams

David Fleming – Eternity

Fabrizio Mancinelli – Out of the Nest

Jónsi & Alex Somers – Rental Family

Sara Barone & Forest Christenson – To Kill a Wolf

Outstanding Original Song for a Dramatic or Documentary Visual Media Production

Diane Warren – “Dear Me” from Diane Warren: Relentless

Alice Smith, Miles Caton & Ludwig Göransson – “Last Time (I Seen the Sun)” from Sinners

WINNER: Raphael Saadiq & Ludwig Göransson – “I Lied to You” from Sinners

Sara Bareilles – “Salt Then Sour Then Sweet” from Come See Me in the Good Light

Nikhil Koparkar & Rammy Park – “The Hills of Tanchico” from The Wheel of Time

Ed Sheeran, Blake Slatkin & John Mayer – “Drive” from F1

Outstanding Original Song for a Comedy or Musical Visual Media Production

WINNER: EJAE & Mark Sonnenblick – “Golden” from KPop Demon Hunters

Stephen Schwartz – “No Place Like Home” from Wicked: For Good

Stephen Schwartz – “The Girl in the Bubble” from Wicked: For Good

Jack Black & Jared Hess – “Steve’s Lava Chicken” from A Minecraft Movie

Mark Ronson, Andrew Wyatt & Jack Black – “I Feel Alive” from A Minecraft Movie

Blake Slatkin, Shakira & Ed Sheeran – “Zoo” from Zootopia 2

Outstanding Original Title Sequence for a Television Production

WINNER: Cristobal Tapia De Veer – The White Lotus

Carlos Rafael Rivera & Scott Frank – Dept. Q

Dave Porter – Pluribus

Sean Callery – The Beast in Me

Amanda Jones – Murderbot

Jeff Beal – All Her Fault

Outstanding Original Score for a Television Production

WINNER: Theodore Shapiro – Severance

Antonio Sánchez – The Studio

Brandon Roberts – Andor

Dave Porter – Pluribus

Cristobal Tapia De Veer – The White Lotus

David Fleming & Gustavo Santaolalla – The Last of Us

Outstanding Original Score for Interactive Media

WINNER: Austin Wintory – Sword of the Sea

Gordy Haab – Indiana Jones and the Great Circle: The Order of the Giants

Wilbert Roget II, Cody Matthew Johnson & Jon Everist – Star Wars Outlaws: A Pirate’s Fortune

Maclaine Diemer – Wildgate

David Raksin Award for Emerging Talent

Cameron Moody – Washington Black

WINNER: Chin-Shan Chang – Laws of Man

Raashi Kulkarni – A Nice Indian Boy

Greg Nicolett – Dr. Seuss’s The Sneetches

Freya Berkhout – Ride or Die

Sarah Trevino – The Map That Leads You