BMI’s longstanding partnership with the Sundance Film Festival continues! From our renowned Composer/Director Roundtable, to our one-of-a-kind Snowball stage, BMI is once again proud to bring you inside news about what’s happening at this incredible gathering of music and film makers. So, stay tuned to this page and enjoy the show!
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Pictured (L-R) at BMI’s 18th annual Sundance Film Festival composer/director roundtable on Monday, January 25 are (front row): composer Atli Orvarsson, composer Walter Werzowa, and director Jeff Feuerzeig. (middle row) director Roger Ross-Williams, composer Miriam Cutler, composer T. Griffin, director Steven Caple, Jr., composer Jongnic Bontemps, composer Kris Bowers, director Heidi Ewing, BMI Vice President, Film/TV Relations, Doreen Ringer-Ross, composer/director Gingger Shankar, composer Mark Suozzo, director Whit Stillman, and composer Peter Golub. (back row) director Chad Hartigan, composer Keegan DeWitt, composer Fil Eisler, composer Blake Neely, composer George S. Clinton and director Grimur Hakonarson.
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Pictured: Family of the Year at BMI Snowball
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Wednesday, Jan 27. Details...
Pictured (L-R) at BMI’s annual Sundance dinner at Zoom on Tuesday, January 26 are: musician Mark Barden; director Kim A. Snyder; BMI Vice President, Film/TV Relations, Doreen Ringer-Ross; and composers George S. Clinton and Peter Rotter.
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Peter Golub has been director of the Sundance Film Music Program since 2000, where he runs the yearly Composers Lab, an intensive workshop for aspiring film composers. He also serves on the Board of the American Music Center. Along with composing numerous concert works and ballets, his film scores include Frozen River, The Great Debaters, Wordplay and The Laramie Project, while recent scores for Broadway include The Heiress, The Country House, and Time Stands Still. Golub was awarded the Classic Contribution Award by BMI and a 2008 Vision Award. He is also the recipient of a Charles Ives Scholarship (given by the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters) as well as grants from the National Endowment of the Arts (Opera/Musical Theater Program), Meet-the-Composer, and New York Foundation for the Arts.
Blake Neely is an award-winning composer, whose work spans both film and television. He has received three Emmy Award nominations for his scores to ABC’s Pan Am, the acclaimed HBO mini-series The Pacific, and for his main title theme from the series Everwood. His film, The Case Against 8, premiered at the Sundance Festival in 2014, and won the Directing Award for U.S. Documentary. In television, he is currently scoring CBS’s Supergirl, NBC’s Blindspot and the CW’s Arrow, The Flash, and DC’s Legends of Tomorrow. He is also working on a documentary about tennis star, Serena Williams.
Neely has worked as a co-composer, conductor, and orchestrator with such masters as Michael Kamen, Hans Zimmer, James Newton Howard, and Vangelis. He has also been a featured lecturer and adviser at the Sundance Institute Composers Lab, USC, Columbia College, UCLA, Hollywood Music Workshop Vienna, and the Conservatory of Music Puerto Rico.
George S. Clinton is an award-winning film composer who has scored more than 100 films, including the Austin Powers’ movies, Mortal Kombat 1 and 2, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, The Santa Clause 2 and 3, Wild Things, John Water’s A Dirty Shame, and Cheech and Chong’s Still Smokin’ and The Corsican Brothers. He began his career as a songwriter, arranger, and session musician in Nashville. After moving to LA, Clinton became a staff writer for Warner Bros. Music with songs recorded by artists including Michael Jackson, Joe Cocker and Styx. Clinton has received GRAMMY and Emmy nominations, The SCL’s Ambassador Award, nine BMI Film Music Awards, and is the recipient of BMI’s highest honor — The Icon Award for outstanding career achievement. He has mentored young composers at the Sundance Institute’s Composers Labs for more than a decade and was most recently Chair of Film Scoring at Berklee College of Music. He currently resides in LA where he continues to do what he loves the most, scoring films.
Emmy-nominated composer Miriam Cutler is passionate about scoring documentaries, including Emmy-winning and Oscar-nominated films The Hunting Ground, Ethel, Lost In La Mancha, Thin, Poster Girl, Kings Point, Ghosts Of Abu Ghraib, American Promise, Vito, Scouts Honor, and License To Kill. She has also co-produced and scored One Lucky Elephant. As for her work in the studio, Cutler has co-produced two GRAMMY-nominated live jazz albums on PolyGram/Verve for Joe Williams, as well as albums for Nina Simone, Shirley Horn, and Marlena Shaw, in addition to albums of her own music. Beyond these musical projects, Cutler has served as Lab Advisor for the Sundance Institute Documentary Composers Lab, as well as on documentary juries including Sundance, Independent Spirit and IDA Awards. An AMPAS Documentary Branch member, Cutler is also a longtime board member of the Society of Composers and Lyricists, and a film expert for the USC/US State Department’s American Film Showcase.
Pianist and film composer Kris Bowers has recorded and/or performed with artists such as Q-Tip, Aretha Franklin, Marcus Miller, Jay-Z, and Kanye West. He has also scored a diverse range of films including, Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me, Seeds of Time, Play it Forward, Kobe Bryant’s Muse, I Am Giant: Victor Cruz, Norman Lear: Just Another Version of You, as well as an upcoming feature film from director Rob Meyer and executive producer Cary Fukunaga. Most recently, Bowers was one of six composers to participate in the Sundance Film Composers Lab at Skywalker Sound. As a performing artist, Bowers won the coveted Thelonious Monk International Jazz Piano Competition in 2011. In 2013, he became a Steinway Artist, and in 2014, with his debut album (Heroes + Misfits), he was named one of twelve “Artists to Watch” by iTunes.
Heidi Ewing is the co-director of Oscar nominated Jesus Camp (Magnolia/A&E Indie), a visceral look at America's Evangelical community. Originally from Detroit, Ewing is also the co-director of Detropia, (a 2012 Sundance and Emmy winner), a searing exploration of the rise and fall of her home town. Other works include The Boys of Baraka (PBS, ThinkFilm, Emmy nominee) and 12th & Delaware (HBO, Peabody winner). She is currently at work on The Arrivals, about two successful Mexican immigrants searching for a path to legalization. She and Rachel Grady are also in production on a new documentary film for Netflix Originals focusing on New York’s Hasidic community. Ewing is the co-owner of New York’s Loki Films.
T. Griffin is a composer, songwriter and producer based in Brooklyn, New York. He has composed scores for more than 30 feature length films, as well as dozens of live and multimedia projects. In addition to his work as a solo artist, he has also worked as a player and/or producer with luminaries of the independent music world including Patti Smith, Vic Chesnutt, Mary Margaret O'Hara and members of The Ex, Dirty Three, Fugazi and Godspeed You! Black Emperor. A fellow at the Sundance Composers' Lab in 2008, Griffin has twice been nominated for Cinema Eye Honors for Original Music Score.
Winner of the 2010 Academy Award for his documentary short subject called Music by Prudence, Roger Ross Williams’ last feature, God Loves Uganda, premiered at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival, won more than a dozen awards, and was short-listed for a 2014 Academy Award. His current film, Life Animated, will premiere in the U.S. Documentary Competition at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival. Williams currently serves on the alumni board of the Sundance Institute and divides his time between New York and Amsterdam.
Fil Eisler faithfully composes music that embodies both story and character. Known for his signature themes and inventive dramatic solutions, his work can be heard on the upcoming films How To Be Single (starring Dakota Johnson and Rebel Wilson), CHiPs (starring and directed by Dax Shepard) and scifi/thriller feature The Titan, (starring Sam Worthington and Taylor Schilling.) He also continues to serve as composer on Fox’s hit drama series Empire and Showtime's Emmy-winning Shameless, as well as the critically lauded series UnReal. Eisler returns to the 2016 Sundance Film Festival with the documentary Newtown, for which he composed the main title theme and acted as music director, assembling an all-star line-up of more than a dozen Hollywood composers, who each donated a piece of music for the film.
Director/producer Kim A. Snyder’s award-winning directorial debut feature documentary about chronic fatigue syndrome, I Remember Me, was theatrically distributed by Zeitgeist Films in 2000. Her most recent film, Welcome To Shelbyville was nationally broadcast on PBS's Independent Lens in 2011. Her impressive resume, which is also comprised of more than a dozen short documentaries, includes her most recent short, Duke Riley Goes to China, which premiered at the Palm Springs Int’l Shortfest in 2015. In 1994, Snyder associate produced the Academy Award-winning short film Trevor, directed by Peggy Rajski.
Austrian born composer Walter Werzowa has been expanding a vision of creating music that is at once unique, dynamic and memorable. Drawing upon a liberal arts education that includes architecture and music, he has built a vast array of compositions for film and television, while becoming a maverick of Audio Branding. Since beginning his career, Werzowa has worked with Fortune 500 companies and top Hollywood film studios and producers, as well as international conglomerates. Current projects include extensive research and development on the use of music therapy in the healing process at USC Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. In addition, Werzowa has grown his one-man shop into Musikvergnuegen, a state-of-the-art boutique sound house located in the heart of LA. With assistance from an in-house team of composers, sound designers and network of freelancers, Musikvergnuegen has been providing original music and sound design for film, television, and commercials for more than a decade.
Jeff Feuerzeig is an award-winning director whose feature film The Devil and Daniel Johnston won top documentary directing honors at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival. The film is a portrait of a schizophrenic musician who overcomes his private demons to develop an avid international following. In addition to this compelling work, Feuerzeig also directed The Real Rocky, a one-hour special for ESPN Films’ acclaimed 30 for 30 Series, which views the story of professional boxer Chuck Wepner through the documentary lens.
Over the past 4 years, Keegan DeWitt has brought eight films to the Sundance Film Festival. His recent collaborations have gone on to garner an Academy Award, a Sundance Audience Award, three NY Times Critic’s Picks and an Independent Spirit Award. From the disintegrated orchestral operas of This Is Martin Bonner to the NY-drenched live jazz arrangements of Listen Up Philip and the urgent and touching Life According To Sam to the 80’s buddy comedy of Land Ho, DeWitt has built a name as a chameleon-like voice for the definitive characters and directors of the films he tackles. Raised in Portland, Oregon, DeWitt attended SUNY Purchase for film direction, before transferring to the Atlantic Theater Company Acting Conservatory where he completed the two year professional program. He has premiered at SXSW and LA Film Fest, as well as many other international film festivals, collaborating with close friends Aaron Katz, Chad Hartigan and Alex Ross Perry. In parallel to his work as a composer, DeWitt is the lead singer and songwriter of the band Wild Cub.
Chad Hartigan was born in Nicosia, Cyprus, and attended the North Carolina School of the Arts, School of Filmmaking. His first feature as writer/director, Luke and Brie Are On A First Date, premiered at the Hamptons International Film Festival in 2008, and was remade for Latin American audiences in 2013 as Luna En Leo. His second feature, This Is Martin Bonner, premiered at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival where it won the Audience Award for Best of NEXT. The film then went on to also win the John Cassavetes Award at the 2014 Film Independent Spirit Awards. Morris From America is Hartigan’s third feature.
Gingger Shankar is a singer, composer and the only woman in the world to play the double violin, an instrument that covers the entire orchestral range. In addition to being a guest performer on Katy Perry's last album, Prism, Shankar has also toured with the Smashing Pumpkins, and composed music for films including Passion of the Christ and Sundance Award Winner Circumstance. She is at Sundance this year with a new multimedia project, Nari, which is about the women in the Shankar family.
Jongnic Bontemps, aka “JB,” is a classically trained composer with roots in the church and jazz worlds as a pianist. Hailing from Brooklyn, New York, he studied music at Yale, Berklee and the University of Southern California and has composed music for more than 50 projects spanning film, television and video games. Working alongside some of Hollywood’s biggest film composers including Alan Silvestri, Alexandre Desplat, Bruce Broughton, Christophe Beck, Marco Beltrami and Theodore Shapiro, JB has real-life experience in scoring for studio features as well as independent films.
Cleveland, Ohio-native Steven Caple Jr. is an award-winning storyteller and filmmaker. In 2013, HBO bought and aired his USC short film, A Different Tree, which won the Jury Prize for the Director’s Guild of America, as well as the Short Film Competition at the American Black Film Festival, and the Audience Choice award at NBC’s Shortcuts and the One Lens Film Festival. Since then, HBO selected Caple to direct a one-act stage comedy in New York during their inaugural HBO Character and Scene Studio. Earning his B.A in Marketing and Film Studies, Caple attended Baldwin-Wallace College and immediately after decided to enhance his craft by enrolling into the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts in 2011.
Mark Suozzo composes music for feature films and documentaries, working alongside many noted independent filmmakers. His long collaboration with Whit Stillman began with Metropolitan and continues through this year’s Sundance debut of Love and Friendship. He’s also scored Shari Springer-Berman and Bob Pulcini’s American Splendor (Sundance Grand Jury Prize), as well as Mary Harron’s The Notorious Bettie Page. His documentaries include Sundance films Thank You and Goodnight, Sound and Fury, Why Can’t We Be a Family Again, and Well-Founded Fear. Suozzo is an Associate Professor of Film Scoring at NYU/Steinhardt.
Whit Stillman was born in Washington, D.C., attended Harvard and worked in book and magazine publishing, as well as the Spanish film industry, prior to making his first film, Metropolitan (Sundance 1990). His new film Love & Friendship, debuts at this year's festival. His other films as writer-director include Barcelona, The Last Days of Disco, and Damsels in Distress, as well as the pilot for The Cosmopolitans. His first novel, The Last Days of Disco, won the 2014 Prix Fitzgerald.
Growing up in the small town of Akureyri, Iceland, as the son of two musicians, Atli Örvarsson studied music and became a member of one of the country’s most popular bands: Sálin hans Jóns míns. Leaving behind the concert stage, he left Iceland for Berklee College of Music where he fell in love with the alchemy of writing music for films. Continuing in a Master’s program at UNC School of the Arts, Örvarsson earned BMI’s Pete Carpenter fellowship, and met and worked with famed television composer Mike Post. After completing his studies, Örvarsson moved to LA where he scored his first feature film, Stuart Little 3. His breakout year came three years later with the release of Vantage Point and Babylon A.D., earning him both a Discovery of the Year nomination from the World Soundtrack Awards and a Breakthrough Composer of the Year nomination from the IFMCA. From 2010-2011, Örvarsson picked up the Law & Order mantle from his mentor, Post, composing the music for the short-lived series Law & Order: L.A. His relationship with Dick Wolf Productions continues with three current NBC series: Chicago Fire, Chicago P.D. and Chicago Med. In addition to these projects, he continues to compose for films including The Eagle, Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters, The Mortal Instruments: City Of Bones, Colette and, from Iceland to Hollywood and back to where it all started, with Rams - winner of the Un Certain Regard Prize at the Cannes International Film Festival.
The Icelandic director Grímur Hákonarson, born in 1977, graduated from FAMU (Film Academy of Performing Arts) in Prague in 2004. His graduate film, Slavek The Shit, was the first film that garnered him international attention by being selected to the Cinéfondation section of the 2005 Cannes Film Festival. The film also won 12 festival prizes, including the Silver Hugo at the Chicago International Film Festival. His next short film, Wrestling, which premiered at the 2007 Locarno Film Festival, is one of the most successful short films from Iceland, having won 25 festival prizes around the world.
Mark degli Antoni is a composer / performer living in Los Angeles and New York. He has scored films for an eclectic selection of narrative and documentary directors including Werner Herzog, Finn Taylor, Marina Zenovich, Roger Ross Williams, Lily Baldwin and Tom E. Brown. A Composer Fellow of the Sundance Institute as well as a co-founder of the avantpop NY band, Soul Coughing, (Warner Records), he has also performed, recorded and created sound for David Byrne, Laurie Anderson, John Zorn and Angelique Kidjo, among others.
Director Werner Herzog was born in Munich, grew up in a remote mountain village in Bavaria and studied history and German literature in Munich and Pittsburgh. He made his first film in 1961, at the age of 19, and since then has produced, written, and directed more than 60 feature and documentary films, including Aguirre, The Wrath Of God (1972), Nosferatu (1978), Fitzcarraldo (1982), Lessons Of Darkness (1992), Little Dieter Needs To Fly (1997), My Best Fiend (1999), Invincible (2000), Grizzly Man (2005), Encounters At The End Of The World (2007), and Cave Of Forgotten Dreams (2010). Herzog has also published more than a dozen books of prose, and directed as many operas. He currently lives in both Munich and Los Angeles.
David Mansfield is an award-winning film and television composer whose score for the A&E mini-series Broken Trail was nominated for an Emmy. His first film score was for the controversial epic Heaven's Gate, which led to a four-film collaboration with director Michael Cimino, and a Golden Globe nomination for Year of the Dragon. Other longstanding relationships include Mexican auteur Arturo Ripstein, with whom he collaborated for Deep Crimson and which garnered the composer Best Musical Score at both the Venice and Havana Film Festivals, and director Maggie Greenwald, with whom he worked on The Ballad of Little Jo and Songcatcher. A world-renowned musician who received national attention at 19 as part of Bob Dylan’s Rolling Thunder Revue, Mansfield’s credits read like a veritable who’s who of popular music, from the late Johnny Cash to Sting, and most recently, with Bobby McFerrin as part of his SpiritYouAll project. He also formed The Alpha Band with T-Bone Burnett and Steven Soles, as well as having been one of the founding members of Bruce Hornsby and the Range, receiving an RIAA platinum album, as well as a GRAMMY for The Way It Is. Other recent projects include producing Loudon Wainwright III’s latest record, Haven’t Got The Blues (Yet), and composing the score for Maggie Greenwald’s new film, Sophie And The Rising Sun.
Writer, director, producer Maggie Greenwald is an award-winning filmmaker who began her career as a picture and sound editor. Her first film, Home Remedy, screened at the Munich, London and Torino Film Festivals before opening at the prestigious Film Forum in New York. Her next film, The Kill-Off, appeared at film festivals around the world including Sundance, Munich, London, Florence, Deauville, Toronto and Edinburgh before winning the Best Director Award at the Torino Film Festival. The film is acknowledged by the British Film Institute as one of the “100 Best American Independents.” Other films include Greenwald’s acclaimed, groundbreaking Western, The Ballad of Little Jo, which won an Independent Spirit Award, as well as her music-based drama, Songcatcher, which she wrote and directed. The film premiered in Dramatic Competition at Sundance 2000, where it garnered a Special Jury Award for Ensemble Performance. It was also the opening night selection of the Hamptons Film Festival and received the first Sloan Foundation Award, Deauville Film Festival Audience Award, two Independent Spirit Award nominations and a GLAAD Award nomination. In 2013, Greenwald directed the teen film The Last Keepers, (starring Zosia Mamet, Aidan Quinn, Virginia Madsen and Olympia Dukakis), and in 2002, she was awarded the Dorothy Arzner Award from the Director’s View Film Festival. For television, Greenwald has directed the GLAAD Award-winning film What Makes A Family (starring Brooke Shields, Whoopi Goldberg and Cherry Jones), Tempted (starring Virginia Madsen) and Comfort and Joy (starring Dixie Carter) for Lifetime Television. She is also responsible for Get A Clue (starring Lindsey Lohan and Brenda Song for the Disney Channel and Good Morning, Killer (starring Catherine Bell) for TNT. Episodic work includes The Adventures of Pete & Pete (Cable ACE Award), The Mystery Files Of Shelby Woo and Wildfire. She is currently developing her first television series, Called to Gilead, with Relativity Television.
David Murillo R. is an award-winning Colombian composer, whose strong appetite for knowledge has, and will, keep pushing the limits of creativity in each of his works. His musical vision spans a wide variety of interests, however, it is focused on composing for visual media including Film, TV, and Interactive. His love for music integrated within pictures has allowed him to work with a diverse portfolio of collaborators with productions ranging globally from Egypt, Iran and London to the United States, Peru and Colombia.
Manolo Cruz was born in Bogotá, Colombia, and since the age of 6, is one of the youngest and best-known actors in his country. In 2010, Cruz started his studies in film direction and script writing, looking to complement his talents and tell his own stories. After creating five of his own short films, including Por Ti (2010), Tu Sombra (2011), Operación Mate (2012), Justicia (2013), and Dos Miedos (2013), he decided to embark on his first feature film, Between Sea and Land, in which he expresses his own cinematic point of view.
Tyler Strickland is a composer and songwriter based in Los Angeles. Prior to his work in film, Strickland traveled the world as a touring multi-instrumentalist in several rock bands for nearly a decade. After deciding to leave the touring life behind, he quickly found himself on his dream path of writing music for film and television. In 2015, he attended the Sundance film festival in support of his scores for two movies; the Emmy-nominated film about the amateur porn world, Hot Girls Wanted (Netflix), and Fresh Dressed, CNN Films’ documentary on the history of urban fashion. This year, he is headed back to Sundance for the world premiere of Audrie & Daisy, the documentary about a fatal high school rape case and the reality of social media bullying, which will be premiering in the U.S. Documentary competition. Stickland has become highly sought-after for his unique blend of traditional film music and his experimental approach with percussion, avant-garde guitar work and ambient textures. His other recent films include The Genius of Marian, Overburden, Tough Love, The Many Sad Fates of Mr. Toledano, and more.
Bonni Cohen has produced and directed an array of award-winning films, including The Island President, Inside Guantanamo, The Rape of Europa, and Wonders Are Many, among others. She recently executive produced 3.5 Minutes, which premiered at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival. She also executive produced Art and Craft, which was short-listed for the Oscars.
Jon Shenk is an Emmy-winning documentary filmmaker and cinematographer whose feature films include The Island President, Lost Boys of Sudan, and The Beginning. His films have also won the Independent Spirit Award, Best Documentary at Toronto, as well as having made the Oscar short-list.
Stephen James Taylor’s style represents a unique blend of classical, rock, blues, gospel, world music, and avante garde. Past projects include scoring Tom Bradley: Bridging the Divide, Maya Angelou-And Still I Rise, Southside With You, People Are The Sky, Marvel’s TV Series The Black Panther, music for Disney World and The Red Sea Astrarium, Universal's The Adventures of Brer Rabbit, Disney’s Mickey’s Twice Upon a Christmas (which won Best Original Score at the 2004 DVDX Awards), Disney’s Teachers Pet, and many of Charles Burnett’s films, including To Sleep With Anger and the blues documentary, Warming By the Devil’s Fire, produced by Martin Scorsese. He has also composed scores for many of Robert Townsend’s films, including Of Boys and Men and Holiday Heart. In 2001, he wrote underscore and produced some of the songs for Clark Johnson’s Boycott and in 1996, was commissioned to write an orchestral suite for the opening ceremonies of the Olympics for which he was also one of the conductors of the Atlanta Symphony for that occasion. In 1993, he received an Emmy nomination for an R&B song he wrote for I’ll Fly Away, in addition to a Daytime Emmy nomination for his classical orchestral score for an episode of the animated series, The Lion King’s Timon and Pumbaa. Other Emmy nominations include music for the PBS movie Brother Future and Disney’s Raw Toonage. In 1999 and 2000, he received Annie nominations for his work on Disney’s Mickey Mouseworks. He has also done string arrangements for James Taylor and Crosby, Stills, and Nash.
In addition to studying music at Stanford, Taylor studied composition with UCLA professor Henri Lazarof. He has also studied microtonality with Erv Wilson, with whom he developed a new 810 key microtonal keyboard. Along with various commissioned works, his personal projects include his solo trans-tonal pop album Embrace It All. A filmmaker as well, he’s completed two short films of his own: the award winning documentary, Surfing the Sonic Sky, and the sci fi short, I Am Here.
Filmmaker Richard Tanne was born and raised in Livingston, New Jersey, the son of a special education teacher, Robyn Weingarten-Tanne, and a bankruptcy attorney, Scott Tanne. As a young boy, his father took him to the movies and his mother told him bedtime stories. Southside With You marks Tanne's feature writing and directing debut. He is also currently writing a film for Pixar.
Jeff Beal is an American composer with a genre-defying musical fluidity. His score and theme for Netflix’s House of Cards received four prime time Emmy Award nominations, and recently won outstanding score, bringing Beal’s Emmy tally to fifteen nominations and four statues. Other lauded series scores include HBO’s Carnivale and Rome, while film scores include the documentaries Blackfish and Queen of Versailles and dramas such as Pollock and Appaloosa. Beal has also garnered a number of concert commissions with works performed by the St. Louis, Rochester, Pacific, Frankfurt, Munich, Detroit and Metropole symphony orchestras; The Ying Quartet, The Debussy Trio, The Henry Mancini Institute, The World Science Festival, Lexington Chamber Music Festival, Smuin Ballet and the Los Angeles Master Chorale.
Scottish singer/songwriter KT Tunstall has led a musical career marked by exploration and authenticity. Propelled, in her teens, by loves for David Bowie and Ella Fitzgerald, she taught herself how to play guitar and write songs, eventually honing her chops until landing a record deal and releasing a feisty, original first album, Eye to the Telescope in 2006. In the wake that promising debut, Tunstall, frustrated by conventional pop, started to experiment with her music, while retaining her signature gritty voice and emotionally affecting songwriting. Subsequent albums found her alternately stripping down her production and dabbling with glossy sheen, but her ambitious textures have never diluted her gift for memorable songwriting. Her most recent album, 2013’s Invisible Empire/Crescent Moon found her giving her deeply personal songs a wider palette of instrumentation, fueled by introspection. After four studio albums, a GRAMMY nomination, an award for Best Track from Q Magazine for her single “Black Horse and the Cherry Tree,” an Ivor Novello award for her single “Suddenly I See” and a Brit award for Best British Female Artist, Tunstall continues to follow her distinctive muse, and intends to release a new album this year.
Weaving together acoustic strums, vocal harmonies and textured melodies, Los Angeles’ Family of the Year made their first major splash in 2012 with “Hero,” a rousing anthem that found its way into Richard Linklater’s acclaimed Boyhood and became an international hit. Buoyed by that success and the wider audience, Family of the Year crafted their sophomore eponymous album, released in 2015, which came rife with classic California pop elements like resonant acoustic melodies, infectious, summery hooks and heartfelt harmonies, proving that “Hero” was no fluke.
The merging of the talents of singer/songwriter BC Jean and guitarist/producer/songwriter Mark Ballas, Alexander Jean is a versatile indie pop duo that is following its own restless heart. Steeped in soaring harmonies and distinctive instrumentation, their debut single, “Roses and Violets,” hit #1 on the iTunes singers/songwriter chart after landing in an episode of Dancing With the Stars, and continues to chart in the Top 20 on Billboard’s Bubbling Under Hot 100. Although already seasoned music creators prior to this project (Beyonce recorded one of BC Jean’s songs, which became of the most played songs of 2009, and Ballas is a musical prodigy, having attended the world-renowned Italia Conti Academy of Performing Arts), Alexander Jean brings to fruition the multi-faceted pair’s gifts. Alexander Jean is expected to release an EP later this year.
Since releasing his first album, 2005’s Washed In Blue, Nashville-based singer-songwriter Drew Holcomb has established himself as a formidable indie artist, selling more than 100,000 records, playing more than 1,500 live dates, selling-out headline shows, and touring alongside such varied acts as the Avett Brothers, Ryan Adams, Los Lobos, NEEDTOBREATHE, Susan Tedeschi, North Mississippi Allstars, Marc Broussard, and many others. His songs have been used in countless television shows and commercials, most notably in TNT’s Emmy Award winning 2011 Christmas Day NBA Forever spot, which paired the song “Live Forever” with a mesmerizing montage of past and present NBA video footage.
