New York University’s Department of Music and Performing Arts Professions has been designated as the East Coast branch of the Los Angeles-based Film Music Society, announced Ron Sadoff, the department’s director of Film Scoring.
Sadoff, who has composed more than 30 scores for documentaries and film projects, will serve as the branch’s co-director, along with the renowned conductor and musicologist Gillian B. Anderson. The non-profit Film Music Society’s (FMS) board of directors voted unanimously to establish its East Coast branch at NYU on Nov. 1.
FMS promotes the preservation of film and television music, including published and unpublished scores, orchestrations, and recordings. The organization’s past presidents have included NYU alumnus and legendary film composer Elmer Bernstein (“Far From Heaven,” “To Kill A Mockingbird”). The society’s current president, Christopher Young, is among Hollywood’s top-tier composers, having scored “The Gift” and the upcoming “The Exorcist: The Beginning.”
“This is the premiere organization for film and television music preservation in the world,” said Sadoff. “The fact that FMS would select NYU’s Department of Music and Performing Arts Professions as the location for its first and only branch office is quite an honor for the faculty and students here. It will also stimulate more research in the field.”
Sadoff attributed FMS’s decision to house an East Coast branch at NYU to the department’s long-standing association with the organization and the university’s highly regarded studies in film scoring.
The Music and Performing Arts Professions Department, part of NYU’s Steinhardt School of Education, has previously hosted two FMS conferences, featuring composers Howard Shore and Stephen Sondheim. Its faculty includes composers Sonny Kompanek, Deniz Hughes, and Marc Consoli. In addition, past departmental seminars have featured David Raksin (“Laura”), Leonard Ronsemann (“Rebel Without A Cause”), and the late Buddy Baker (“The Fox and the Hound”), as well as music editors Roy Prendergast (“Shakespeare in Love”) and Suzanna Peric (“Silence of the Lambs”).
In addition, the department has teamed up with the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers to present the annual NYU/ASCAP Film Scoring Workshops, in which participants undergo training in all aspects of film scoring, including timings, spotting, composing, MIDI mock-ups, orchestration, and recording. These workshops, now in their fifth year, feature faculty composers such as Marco Beltrami (“Terminator 3”) and Marc Snow (“The X-Files”). Participants record with musicians from the New York Philharmonic and the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra.
The NYU-based branch will develop a body of FMS members on the East Coast, create and host East Coast FMS conferences, and build and attract scores and film music collections as part of the Fales Special Collections at NYU’s Bobst Library.
For more information on NYU’s Film Scoring curriculum, go to: http://www.nyu.edu/education/music/mfilm/
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