Angels in America [Soundtrack]

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Newman's romantic, epic-scale orchestral score to the HBO film version of Tony Kushner's Angels in America "seems divinely inspired," says the San Francisco Chronicle, and proves "rewarding in its own right from beginning to end ... Newman has risen gloriously to the greatness of Angels."

Description

On December 2, 2003, Nonesuch Records released the soundtrack to HBO Films’ event presentation of Tony Kushner’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Angels in America. This new record is the latest soundtrack by five-time Academy Award-nominee Thomas Newman—composer of the scores for American Beauty (Grammy Award winner), The Player, Road to Perdition, Little Women, and The Shawshank Redemption, among many others. Newman was honored with an Emmy Award for Outstanding Main Title Theme Music for HBO’s award-winning drama Six Feet Under. Most recently, Newman wrote the score for the critically acclaimed blockbuster animated film Finding Nemo. To reflect Angels in America’s wide range of emotions, Newman has created a romantic, epic-scale orchestral score with chorale accompaniment.

Directed by Mike Nichols and starring Al Pacino, Meryl Streep, Emma Thompson, and Mary-Louise Parker, Angels in America is a six-hour epic created from the Kushner play, with a screenplay adaptation by the author. Its original 1991 Broadway production was honored with numerous accolades, including two Tony awards and two Drama Desk awards. An indictment of the politics of AIDS during the Reagan era, it is also a simple tale about a handful of people trying to make sense of a world that seems to value human life and decency less and less.

"Like just about everything else in the superb film of Angels in America," said the San Francisco Chronicle, "Thomas Newman's music seems divinely inspired." What's more, the soundtrack proves "rewarding in its own right from beginning to end ... Newman has risen gloriously to the greatness of Angels."

The composer—whose score aims to reflect the sometimes dreamlike and drug-induced, other times romantic nature of the film—says of his music that it “wraps its arms around a broad array of human emotion, from despair to guarded optimism, and to give play to Mike Nichols’ spare irony and enduring humanism.”

The youngest son of the legendary Alfred Newman (whose motto theme for Twentieth Century Fox remains a fixed icon in the city of moving images), nephew of the equally legendary Lionel Newman, cousin of singer/songwriter and film composer Randy, and brother of film composer David, Thomas Newman hails from one of Hollywood’s musical first families. With an extensive and impressive filmography of his own, he is among the front ranks of Hollywood composers. Newman has received five Oscar nominations for his film work: he was the only double nominee in 1994, receiving two nominations for both Little Women and The Shawshank Redemption and the following year for his score to Diane Keaton’s off-beat comedy Unstrung Heroes. His score for the Oscar-winning American Beauty, starring Kevin Spacey and Annette Bening, earned him his fourth nomination. Newman recently received his fifth Academy Award nomination for Road to Perdition, directed by Sam Mendes and starring Tom Hanks, Paul Newman, and Jude Law. Newman’s work also was featured in Miramax’s Oscar-nominated In the Bedroom, starring Sissy Spacek, Tom Wilkinson, and Marisa Tomei.

ProductionCredits

PRODUCTION CREDITS
Music Composed and Conducted by Thomas Newman
Produced by Thomas Newman and Bill Bernstein
Recorded and Mixed by Tommy Vicari at Signet Sound Studios
Orchestra Recorded by Armin Steiner at the Fox Newman Scoring Stage and Todd Scoring Stage
Assistant Engineers: Tom Hardisty, John Rodd, David Marquette
Orchestrations by Thomas Pasatieri
Vocal Arrangements by Thomas Pasatieri, Thomas Newman
Music Editor: Bill Bernstein
Music Contractor: Leslie Morris
Vocal Contractor: Bobbi Page
Music Preparation: Julian Bratolyubov
Assistant Music Editor: Michael Zainer
Digital Audio: Jesse Voccia
Album Mastered by Joe Gastwirt at Joe’s Mastering Joint
Music Supervisor: Evyen Klean

All music composed by Thomas Newman

Design by Doyle Partners

Executive Producer: Robert Hurwitz

Nonesuch Selection Number

79837

Number of Discs in Set
1disc
ns_album_artistid
201
ns_album_id
540
ns_album_releasedate
ns_genre_1
0
ns_genre_2
0
Album Status
Artist Name
Thomas Newman
MusicianDetails

MUSICIANS
George Lewis and His Ragtime Band (17)
Zella Jackson-Price (31)
Instrumental Soloists:
George Doering, kantele, esraj, high-string guitar, baritone electric, lute
Michael Fisher, skin drums, ice metals, bodhran, tympani, processed chimes, dayre
Steve Tavaglione, clarinet, EWI, alto flute, manipulated violin
George Budd, MB Sop Osc, Mul Whis DDL, multi rhy B Spc
Rick Cox, prepared guitar, contra-alto clarinet
Steve Kujala, flutes
Leslie Reed, oboe
Sid Page, violin
Oliver Schroer, source violin
John Beasley, prepared piano
Bill Bernstein, guitar
Thomas Newman, piano
Vocal Soloists: Elin Carlson, Dwayne Condon, Chris Ibenhard, Susan Stevens Logan, Susan Montgomery, Bobbi Page, Sally Stevens

Cover Art
UPC/Price
Label
CD+MP3
Price
0.00
UPC
075597983722BUN
Label
MP3
UPC
075597983760
  • 79837

News & Reviews

  • Randy Newman was on CBS Sunday Morning's Academy Awards episode, in a feature on his family and their "movie music dynasty," including his uncles Alfred, Emil, and Lionel Newman, cousins David and Thomas Newman, and Randy himself. "There are Newmans everywhere dotting Hollywood history from the beginning. It's one-of-a-kind. It's an extraordinary story," says film-music historian John Burlingame. "When you look at the individuals and you see how talented each one of them is in their own way, when you put it all together, it's a bit mind-boggling." Watch the feature and see what Randy had to say here.

  • Thomas Newman is the subject of an article from Reuters and the Hollywood Reporter that traces his career in music, from his early ambivalence about following in his famous father's footsteps to his becoming an acclaimed composer in his own right, with scores to films like Revolutionary Road and HBO's Angels in America. Newman "has produced some of the most memorable film music of the past 20 years," says Reuters, having now "cemented his place on the A list."

  • About This Album

    On December 2, 2003, Nonesuch Records released the soundtrack to HBO Films’ event presentation of Tony Kushner’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Angels in America. This new record is the latest soundtrack by five-time Academy Award-nominee Thomas Newman—composer of the scores for American Beauty (Grammy Award winner), The Player, Road to Perdition, Little Women, and The Shawshank Redemption, among many others. Newman was honored with an Emmy Award for Outstanding Main Title Theme Music for HBO’s award-winning drama Six Feet Under. Most recently, Newman wrote the score for the critically acclaimed blockbuster animated film Finding Nemo. To reflect Angels in America’s wide range of emotions, Newman has created a romantic, epic-scale orchestral score with chorale accompaniment.

    Directed by Mike Nichols and starring Al Pacino, Meryl Streep, Emma Thompson, and Mary-Louise Parker, Angels in America is a six-hour epic created from the Kushner play, with a screenplay adaptation by the author. Its original 1991 Broadway production was honored with numerous accolades, including two Tony awards and two Drama Desk awards. An indictment of the politics of AIDS during the Reagan era, it is also a simple tale about a handful of people trying to make sense of a world that seems to value human life and decency less and less.

    "Like just about everything else in the superb film of Angels in America," said the San Francisco Chronicle, "Thomas Newman's music seems divinely inspired." What's more, the soundtrack proves "rewarding in its own right from beginning to end ... Newman has risen gloriously to the greatness of Angels."

    The composer—whose score aims to reflect the sometimes dreamlike and drug-induced, other times romantic nature of the film—says of his music that it “wraps its arms around a broad array of human emotion, from despair to guarded optimism, and to give play to Mike Nichols’ spare irony and enduring humanism.”

    The youngest son of the legendary Alfred Newman (whose motto theme for Twentieth Century Fox remains a fixed icon in the city of moving images), nephew of the equally legendary Lionel Newman, cousin of singer/songwriter and film composer Randy, and brother of film composer David, Thomas Newman hails from one of Hollywood’s musical first families. With an extensive and impressive filmography of his own, he is among the front ranks of Hollywood composers. Newman has received five Oscar nominations for his film work: he was the only double nominee in 1994, receiving two nominations for both Little Women and The Shawshank Redemption and the following year for his score to Diane Keaton’s off-beat comedy Unstrung Heroes. His score for the Oscar-winning American Beauty, starring Kevin Spacey and Annette Bening, earned him his fourth nomination. Newman recently received his fifth Academy Award nomination for Road to Perdition, directed by Sam Mendes and starring Tom Hanks, Paul Newman, and Jude Law. Newman’s work also was featured in Miramax’s Oscar-nominated In the Bedroom, starring Sissy Spacek, Tom Wilkinson, and Marisa Tomei.

    Credits

    MUSICIANS
    George Lewis and His Ragtime Band (17)
    Zella Jackson-Price (31)
    Instrumental Soloists:
    George Doering, kantele, esraj, high-string guitar, baritone electric, lute
    Michael Fisher, skin drums, ice metals, bodhran, tympani, processed chimes, dayre
    Steve Tavaglione, clarinet, EWI, alto flute, manipulated violin
    George Budd, MB Sop Osc, Mul Whis DDL, multi rhy B Spc
    Rick Cox, prepared guitar, contra-alto clarinet
    Steve Kujala, flutes
    Leslie Reed, oboe
    Sid Page, violin
    Oliver Schroer, source violin
    John Beasley, prepared piano
    Bill Bernstein, guitar
    Thomas Newman, piano
    Vocal Soloists: Elin Carlson, Dwayne Condon, Chris Ibenhard, Susan Stevens Logan, Susan Montgomery, Bobbi Page, Sally Stevens

    PRODUCTION CREDITS
    Music Composed and Conducted by Thomas Newman
    Produced by Thomas Newman and Bill Bernstein
    Recorded and Mixed by Tommy Vicari at Signet Sound Studios
    Orchestra Recorded by Armin Steiner at the Fox Newman Scoring Stage and Todd Scoring Stage
    Assistant Engineers: Tom Hardisty, John Rodd, David Marquette
    Orchestrations by Thomas Pasatieri
    Vocal Arrangements by Thomas Pasatieri, Thomas Newman
    Music Editor: Bill Bernstein
    Music Contractor: Leslie Morris
    Vocal Contractor: Bobbi Page
    Music Preparation: Julian Bratolyubov
    Assistant Music Editor: Michael Zainer
    Digital Audio: Jesse Voccia
    Album Mastered by Joe Gastwirt at Joe’s Mastering Joint
    Music Supervisor: Evyen Klean

    All music composed by Thomas Newman

    Design by Doyle Partners

    Executive Producer: Robert Hurwitz