Composer Hans Zimmer has won practically every major show-biz award: he has two Oscars, three Golden Globes and four Grammys. But he has never won an Emmy, and this year he has his best shot yet with nominations in three categories across the Creative Arts Emmys nominations.
Peacock’s six-part historical drama “The Tattooist of Auschwitz” earned nominations for music composition for a limited or anthology series, movie or special (Zimmer shares it with co-composer Kara Talve) and for outstanding song (Zimmer and Talve sharing the nomination with co-songwriter Walter Afanasieff and lyricist Charlie Midnight).
The song, “Love Will Survive,” is especially notable as having been performed by 82-year-old diva Barbra Streisand. Zimmer is also nominated (along with co-composers Jacob Shea and Sara Barone) for best documentary score for “Planet Earth III.”
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Nominees in the seven music categories were announced as part of the 76th annual Emmy Award nominations Wednesday morning by the Television Academy. Approximately 600 members of the Academy Music Peer Group chose them; winners will be announced as part of the Creative Arts Emmy Awards ceremonies on Sept. 7 and 8.
The composers of three other series were nominated in two categories. The trio that scored FX’s “Shogun”—Atticus Ross, Leopold Ross and Nick Chuba—were nominated for music composition for a series as well as main title theme music. Similarly, Jeff Toyne earned nods in both those categories for the Apple TV+ comedy “Palm Royale.” This marks the first time at the Emmys for Toyne, Leopold Ross and Chuba; Atticus Ross already has an Emmy for “Watchmen.”
Two-time Emmy winner Carlos Rafael Rivera is also nominated twice, for music composition for a limited or anthology series, along with main title theme music, for the Apple TV+ series “Lessons in Chemistry.” David Fleming has two nominations, for music composition for a series with Prime Video’s “Mr. and Mrs. Smith” and music composition for a documentary series or special with the Disney doc “Jim Henson Idea Man.”
Other past Emmy winners are up for double awards this year: Marc Shaiman, for his documentary score for the HBO doc “Albert Brooks: Defending My Life,” and a song in Hulu’s comedy “only Murders in the Building,” “Which of the Pickwick Triplets Did It?” co-written with Benj Pasek, Justin Paul and Scott Wittman.
A win for the “only Murders” tune—a comedy patter song performed by Steve Martin—would also catapult Pasek and Paul into EGOT status, as they already have Oscars, Tonys and Grammys on their mantel. The song category, formally known as “original music and lyrics,” includes two other nominees: Sara Bareilles for Netflix’s “Girls5eva”; and John Hawkes for a song in HBO’s “True Detective: Night Country.”
Another two-time Emmy winner, Rickey Minor, is a two-time nominee this year in the music direction category, for his work on CBS’s “The Kennedy Center Honors” and ABC’s “The Oscars.”
Veteran “Saturday Night Live” music director Eli Brueggemann, a past winner, is also up for two Emmys this year: music direction, along with Leon Pendarvis and Lenny Pickett, for the Ryan Gosling-hosted “SNL” episode; and for original song in the Maya Rudolph-hosted episode, along with Rudolph and “SNL” writers Auguste White, Mike DiCenzo and Jake Nordwind.
Also nominated for music direction are Fred Armisen and Eli Janney for NBC’s “Late Night With Seth Meyers”; and Adam Blackstone, Don Was and Omar Edwards for ABC’s “Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony”; both Blackstone and Was are past winners.
Also nominated for music composition for a series are Martin Phipps for Netflix’s “The Crown,” Siddhartha Khosla for “only Murders in the Building,” Atli Örvarsson for the Apple TV+ “Silo,” and Daniel Pemberton and Toydrum for the Apple TV+ series “Slow Horses.” Örvarsson and Toydrum are newcomers to the Emmy competition; Phipps, Khosla and Pemberton are previous nominees but have not won.
Also nominated for music composition for a limited or anthology series, movie or special are previous winners James Newton Howard, for Netflix’s “All the Light We Cannot See,” and Jeff Russo, for FX’s “Fargo”; and first-time nominee Chanda Dancy for the Paramount+ series “Lawmen: Bass Reeves.”
Additional nominees in the music composition for a documentary series or special category include Anže Rozman and Camilo Forero for Netflix’s “Beckham”; and previous Emmy winner Laura Karpman for HBO’s “Rock Hudson: All That Heaven Allowed.”
A pair of past Emmy winners, Thomas Newman (“Six Feet Under”) and Blake Neely (“The Flight Attendant”), are again up for awards in the main title theme category, for FX’s “Feud: Capote Vs. the Swans” and the Apple TV+ miniseries “Masters of the Air,” respectively.
Nominated for outstanding music supervision are Catherine Grieves for Netflix’s “Baby Reindeer,” Trygge Toven for Prime Video’s “Fallout,” Maggie Phillips for “Fargo,” Jen Malone for “Mr. and Mrs. Smith,” Bruce Gilbert and Lauren Marie Mikus for “only Murders in the Building” and Susan Jacobs for “True Detective: Night Country.” Jacobs is the only previous winner in this category; Grieves and Malone are previous nominees but the rest are first-timers at the Emmys.
There were few surprises in this year’s batch. The Weeknd was snubbed for his original songs in “The Idol,” and Usher’s “Super Bowl LVIII Halftime Show” was nominated for variety special but not music direction.
