Kyle Eastwood was the cultural guest on franceinfo on Saturday, March 28, 2026 to present the “Eastwood Symphonic” event, which is a tribute to the film music of his father, Clint Eastwood.
“Eastwood Symphonic” is an event that will take place at the Châtelet on April 10. It is a tribute to your father’s film music. But it all started for you with an album dedicated to your father’s film music. What inspired you to make this album?
Kyle Eastwood: I want to pay tribute to my father and his career, but also to all the great musicians and composers who created the music for these films.
Moreover, these films and their music have been with you throughout your life since you grew up with them.
Yes, I grew up with film music and the music of Ennio Morricone, Lalo Schifrin, John Williams, and we will play the music of these musicians and the music that I have written with my father as well.
You play with the Facette symphony orchestra. You play the bass, the double bass. The first time you played this music with a symphony orchestra, what did you feel?
Yes, it’s amazing. It’s very different from playing jazz music with musicians in a quintet. A lot of emotions? Yes, lots of emotions, lots of sounds. The project is a mixture of music, cinema, and jazz, the interpretation of jazz.
So, Kyle, has your father Clint Eastwood attended one of his concerts?
Yes, just once in California. I did the concert, the program at the Monterey Jazz Festival, not far from where I grew up. He likes music and the concert, the project.
At first, your father wanted you to be an actor. In fact, he had you play in various films, including Honky Tonk Man, when you were 14. Well, in the end, you’re not really an actor, you’re a musician, but he must have been very happy too since jazz, and you’re a jazz musician, it’s a passion you share, so he must have been pleased that you chose it.
Yes, I appreciated my mother’s and father’s music. And my two passions are cinema and music. When I discovered the double bass and the electric bass, I decided to be a musician.
You also participate in your father’s films in music, often anyway, in nine films. Among them, Gran Torino, which we will obviously find in the concert. What is he like during work? Is he tough or… How is it to work with his father?
No, he’s a good boss. He’s a good boss. It’s a great pleasure for me and I am very proud of the music I wrote with him for Gran Torino.
Does he treat you like the others or is there still a little father-son relationship or not at all when you work together?
He likes the same type of music as me. It’s a pleasure to work with him. It’s fluid, actually. It’s easy.
So in the concert we will obviously find the westerns: A Fistful of Dollars, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. And then there’s also The Bridges of Madison County, a film obviously mythical. So we hear it in the concert, but you did not participate in the music of The Bridges of Madison County. However, you are in the film, in a small scene where you play in a band.
Yes. I played with a jazz band in just a small scene. It’s very brief.
Do you talk about your careers together? What does he say? What does he think of your career?
Yes, he is proud. He loves music, especially jazz and blues. Yes, it’s a pleasure for him.
You live between France and the United States, you obviously travel around the world, but you told me earlier that when you are together, sometimes, you start playing music.
Yes, normally I do a lot of concerts in Europe and especially here in France. I do the concert for two times, two or three months, and then I will come back.
