David Newman to receive Richard Kirk Award during BMI Film & TV Awards

Prolific composer David Newman will receive the Richard Kirk Award for outstanding career achievement at BMI’s annual Film & Television Awards on Wednesday, May 20 in Los Angeles. Staged at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, the black-tie, invitation-only dinner will also honor the composers of the past year’s top-grossing films, top-rated prime-time network television series and highest-ranking cable network programs. BMI President Del Bryant, and Vice President Doreen Ringer Ross, will host the event.

Named in honor of former BMI Vice President and film & television department founder Richard Kirk, the Richard Kirk Award is bestowed on composers who have made significant contributions to the realm of film and television. As the 2009 honoree, David Newman joins an elite list of peers that includes his brother Thomas Newman, Christopher Young, George S. Clinton, Harry Gregson-Williams, Jerry Goldsmith, Michael Kamen, Mark Mothersbaugh, Danny Elfman, Alan Menken, Mike Post, Lalo Schifrin, John Barry and John Williams.

Academy Award-nominated composer David Newman has helped create and elevate American pop culture for more than 20 years. Both an accomplished violinist and conductor of leading orchestras around the world including the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Newman has scored over 100 films, including Hoffa, Throw Mama From the Train, Brave Little Toaster, Critters, Serenity, Bowfinger, Tommy Boy, Brokedown Palace, Galaxy Quest, Ice Age, The Spirit, and Anastasia – for which he received an Academy Award nomination. He is the recipient of 12 BMI Film Music Awards.

BMI will also present the Classic Contribution Award to Mike Post in recognition of his dedicated involvement with the BMI Foundation’s Pete Carpenter Fellowship. The annual fellowship is bestowed on an aspiring film and television composer in memory of Post’s late musical partner and friend Pete Carpenter, the composer of pioneering television themes including The A-Team, Magnum P.I., The Rockford Files, Hardcastle and McCormick, Hunter and Riptide.