The composer behind the Birdman soundtrack has insisted Oscars bosses were wrong for disqualifying his music ahead of the Academy Awards nominations on Thursday (15Jan15).

The movie is leading the charge ahead of this year's (15) Academy Awards ceremony with nine nods, tying with The Grand Budapest Hotel, but the Michael Keaton movie missed out in the Original Score category because bosses ruled the soundtrack ineligible.

The musician behind the Birdman score, Antonio Sanchez, admits he was devastated by the disqualification, and insists Academy heads were wrong to remove his work from the running.

He tells the New York Daily News, "I think it was too different and innovative for their ears. If I would have added strings and an orchestra, things that are status quo, they probably wouldn't have had a problem with it... Everybody thinks it's ridiculous. The work speaks for itself."

Academy bosses blamed the disqualification from the Original Score category on the fact that the soundtrack contains "over a half an hour of non-original (mostly classical) music cues".

The nominations for Original Score went to The Imitation Game, Interstellar, Mr. Turner, The Theory of Everything and Birdman's big rival The Grand Budapest Hotel.