BMI Conducting Workshop Celebrates Ten Years of Honing Talent

2007-07-27T13:26:01-05:00

BMI’s Conducting Workshop recently celebrated 10 years of teaching composers the art of conducting musical scores. BMI Classic Contribution Award-winner, conductor and composer Lucas Richman once again led the program. Conducting for the Film Composer is a two-week course taught by Richman and designed for eight BMI composers who seek to refine their conducting skills. The class is taught at the American Federation of Musicians Local 47 in Hollywood, CA and is free to the accepted participants.

Conductor Lucas Richman (l) and composer Tim Wynn.

This year’s students are an exemplary group of working film and television composers: Kathryn Bostic (Sundance Fellow, Beyond the Ring, Contradictions of the Heart); Kris Carter (Justice League, Teen Titans); Eric Colvin (NASCAR 3D: The IMAX Experience, Bark!); Claude Foisy (The 4400, White Noise); Corey Jackson (Left in Darkness, Starting Over); Dave Reynolds (Cruel Intentions 3, Tides of War); Craig Richey (Friends with Money, Lovely & Amazing); Tim Wynn (Reflections of Venice, Chasing the Light). The class is coordinated by BMI’s Senior Director of Film/TV Relations, Ray Yee, and BMI’s Film/TV Relations staff.

The whole group pauses for a photo: (l-r, front): BMI's Ray Yee, composer Kathryn Bostic, conductor Lucas Richman and composer Kris Carter; (back) composer Corey Jackson, BMI's Linda Livingston, composers Tim Wynn and Eric Colvin, BMI’s Doreen Ringer Ross, composers Craig Richey, and Dave Reynolds, contractor David Low, composer Claude Foisy, BMI's Anne Cecere and Philip Shrut.

BMI recently recognized accomplished conductor and composer Lucas Richman with the 2007 Classic Contribution Award for 10 years of service leading BMI’s celebrated Conductor’s Workshop. A BMI composer, Richman has led the workshop since its inception. Presently Music Director and Conductor for the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra, Richman is a leading expert in conducting and composing, having fashioned an outstanding career as a conductor with numerous symphonies and orchestras in the U.S. as well as collaborator with numerous film composers as their conductor for such films as the Academy Award-nominated As Good As It Gets, Face/Off, Seven, Breakdown, Anastasia and The Village.

Past participants in the highly touted lab, include composers Cliff Martinez, Stewart Copeland, Camara Kambon, Danny Pelfrey, Richard Gibbs, Bill Brown, Bennett Salvay, Rolfe Kent, Julie and Steve Bernstein, Anthony Marinelli, Alex Wurman, Gary Kuo, Tyler Bates, Nate Barr, James Venable, Mervyn Warren, Chris Lennertz and Laura Karpman.

Photos: Anna Maria DiSanto

Composer Nate Barr Says ‘Yeeeeeehaaaaaa’ to ‘Dukes’ Score

2005-06-16T18:00:00-05:00

BMI film composer Nate Barr, who is busy putting the finishing touches on the score to the forthcoming action/comedy The Dukes of Hazzard, took some time to meet with BMI executives in the studio.

Shown at the scoring session are BMI composer Nate Barr, BMI's Doreen Ringer Ross, First Artists Management's Rich Jacobellis and BMI's Ray Yee.

Based on the hit television series that ran from 1979-85, this present-day story follows the adventures of "good old boy" cousins, Bo (Seann William Scott) and Luke (Johnny Knoxville) Duke, who with the help of their eye-catching cousin Daisy (Jessica Simpson) and moonshine-running Uncle Jesse (BMI songwriter/artist Willie Nelson), try and save the family farm from being destroyed by Hazzard County's corrupt commissioner Boss Hogg (Burt Reynolds). The Dukes of Hazzard hits theaters on August 5.

An assistant to Academy Award-winning composer Hans Zimmer, Barr struck out on his own in 1998 after landing his first feature film entitled Hairshirt, directed by Dean Paras, and starring Neve Campbell and Rebecca Gayheart. Since then, he has scored more than 10 films ranging from the critically acclaimed documentary Beyond The Mat (1999), to the Quentin Tarantino produced Hangman's Daughter (2000). His TV scoring credits include the CBS drama Kate Brasher (2001), starring Mary Stuart Masterson, and produced by Danny DeVito and Stephen Tolkin.