Composers Christophe Beck and the Newton Brothers were among top honorees at Thursday night’s SESAC Film and Television Composer Awards in Santa Monica, California.
Beck (pictured above, right) was cited for his music for last year’s action comedy “Free Guy,” while the Newton Brothers (Andy Grush and Taylor Stewart) earned their award for scoring the action-horror film “The Forever Purge.”
Television composers honored for popular series included Danny Lux (above, left, “Grey’s Anatomy,” “Manifest,” “Rebel,” “Station 19”), Jon Ehrlich (above, center, “The Resident”), Gabriel Mann (“A Million Little Things”) and Paul Buckley (“Odd Squad”).
Scott Jungmichel, recently named president and COO of SESAC Performing Rights, greeted the crowd, while Erin Collins, VP of film, television and developing media, announced that SESAC’s Reel Change: The Fund for Diversity in Film Scoring program (designed to support traditionally underrepresented groups) had recently funded projects for 12 composers, amounting to nearly $200,000.
Beck was honored in two other arenas, for performances of his music on cable and streaming services (including “WandaVision” and “Hawkeye”), as were Lux, Mann, Bruce Miller (“Frasier”), Christopher Tyng (“Suits”) and Matt Mariano (“Alexa & Katie”).
Network TV performance awards also went to Jason Derlatka (“The Resident”), David Feldstein (“Earth Odyssey”), Evan Frankfort (“Lucky Dog”), Francois Hasden (“48 Hours”), Michael Egizi (CBS promos), Seth Jabour and Syd Butler (“Late Night With Seth Meyers”), and Guillermo Brown, Hagar Ben Ari, Steven Scalfati and Tim Young (“The Late Late Show With James Corden”).
Local TV performance awards went to Mann (“Modern Family”), Buckley (“2 Broke Girls”), Frankfort (“Ocean Treks”), Egizi (“The Drew Barrymore Show”), Dennis C. Brown (“Two and a Half Men”), John Swihart (“How I Met Your Mother”), Bob DeMarco (“The Doctors”), David Catalano (“Judge Jerry”), Glenn Sherman (“Maury”), Devin Powers (“Couples Court”), Fernando Corona (“Suelta la Sopa”), Jason Halbert (“The Kelly Clarkson Show”), Kenny Lattimore (“Divorce Court”) and Larry Brown (“Animal Rescue”).
Music publishers associated with these and other shows were also honored. The invitation-only event was attended by dozens of composers and music supervisors along with publishers, agents, studio executives, attorneys, publicists and others in the film music community.
SESAC Performing Rights is the second-oldest performing rights organization in the U.S., representing composers and songwriters from a broad range of music genres including Adele, David Crosby, Neil Diamond and Bob Dylan.
