Thomas Newman
- Not to be confused with Tom Newman
Thomas Newman |
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Thomas Montgomery Newman (born October 20, 1955) is an American 10 time Academy Award-nominated film score composer.
Biography
Life and career
Newman was born in Los Angeles, California, the son of Mississippi-born Martha Louise Montgomery and composer Alfred Newman. He is a member of a film-scoring dynasty in Hollywood that includes his father, his uncle Lionel Newman, his brother David Newman, and his cousins Joey Newman and Randy Newman (who is best known as a singer and songwriter).
Newman was educated at Yale University, and began his film-scoring career in 1984 with his score for Reckless. His breakthrough came in 1994, when he earned two Academy Award nominations for his scores to Little Women and The Shawshank Redemption; he was the only double-nominee that year. His critical and commercial success has continued in recent years with his scores for American Beauty (winner of the Grammy Award for Best Score Soundtrack Album for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media), Road to Perdition, Finding Nemo, Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, Pay it Forward, Erin Brockovich, The Good German and WALL-E.
Newman has composed music for television as well, including theme music for the series Boston Public and the miniseries Angels in America. His theme music for the television show Six Feet Under won two Grammy Awards in 2003, for Best Instrumental Composition as well as Best Instrumental Arrangement. Newman also wrote a commissioned concert work for orchestra, Reach Forth Our Hands, for the 1996 Cleveland Bicentennial. The Los Angeles Philharmonic has commissioned a new work by Newman to be performed by the Kronos Quartet and Los Angeles Philharmonic, conducted by Leonard Slatkin, during the orchestra's 2009-2010 season.
At the 79th Academy Awards, Newman appeared in the opening segment by Errol Morris, jokingly correcting a claim that he had been nominated for and failed to win an Academy Award eight times: "No, I've failed seven but this will be my eighth."
Though they were not composed specifically for the film, seven of Newman's previous score compositions were included in Michael Moore's 2007 documentary, Sicko. Newman received a special thanks credit, in addition to seven individual song credits.
A portion of his song "Brooks Was Here", as composed for and featured in the film The Shawshank Redemption, is played in the background of the artist Seal's song "My Vision".
Musical style
Newman's earliest scores from the 1980s were predominantly electronic. Starting with The Rapture in 1991, his scores have alternated a more traditional orchestral sound with other passages that use a shifting array of unconventional, non-Western and modified instruments, such as processed hurdy gurdy, detuned mandolin, tabla, xaphoon, and saz, as well as electronic elements to create a percussive, gamelan-like sound. Chas Smith and Rick Cox are frequent collaborators when Newman works in this style. Some of his scores lean more heavily towards one or the other of these modes; the scores for The Player, American Beauty, Finding Nemo, WALL-E, and Erin Brockovich exemplify his more percussive, "experimental" sound, while his scores for The Shawshank Redemption and Road to Perdition use conventional orchestration.
Credits
Awards & Nominations
Compositions
(*) = soundtrack available on CD
1980s
- 1984: Reckless
- 1984: Revenge of the Nerds*
- 1984: Grandview, U.S.A.
- 1985: Desperately Seeking Susan*
- 1985: Girls Just Want to Have Fun
- 1985: The Man with One Red Shoe
- 1985: Real Genius
- 1986: Jumpin' Jack Flash
- 1987: Less Than Zero*
- 1987: Light of Day*
- 1987: The Lost Boys*
- 1988: The Prince of Pennsylvania
1990s
- 1990: Men Don't Leave
- 1992: The Player
- 1992: Fried Green Tomatoes*
- 1992: Scent of a Woman*
- 1993: Flesh and Bone*
- 1994: Little Women* (Academy Award nomination)
- 1994: The Shawshank Redemption* (Academy Award nomination)
- 1994: The War
- 1995: How to Make an American Quilt*
- 1995: Unstrung Heroes (Academy Award nomination)
- 1996: The People vs. Larry Flynt*
- 1996: American Buffalo*
- 1996: Phenomenon*
- 1996: Up Close and Personal*
- 1997: Red Corner*
- 1997: Mad City*
- 1997: Oscar and Lucinda*
- 1998: The Horse Whisperer*
- 1998: Meet Joe Black*
- 1999: American Beauty* (Academy Award nomination; Grammy Award; BAFTA Award)
- 1999: The Green Mile*
2000s
- 2000: Erin Brockovich*
- 2000: Pay It Forward*
- 2000: Boston Public (TV; main theme)
- 2001: In the Bedroom
- 2001: Six Feet Under* (TV; main theme) (Emmy Award; Grammy Awards; remixes by Photek and Rae & Christian are available)
- 2002: The Salton Sea*
- 2002: Road to Perdition* (Academy Award nomination)
- 2002: White Oleander*
- 2003: Finding Nemo* (Academy Award nomination)
- 2003: Angels in America* (TV)
- 2004: Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events* (Academy Award nomination)
- 2005: Cinderella Man*
- 2005: Jarhead*
- 2006: Little Children*
- 2006: The Good German* (Academy Award nomination)
- 2008: WALL-E* (Academy Award nomination - Best Original Score, Best Original Song; Grammy Award nomination)
- 2008: Towelhead*
- 2008: Revolutionary Road*
- 2009: Brothers (in production)
Additional soundtracks
- 2005: Madagascar (from American Beauty)
- 2007: Sicko (from Little Children, Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, and In the Bedroom)