Song:Road To Chicago
Album:Road To Perdition: Music From The Motion Picture
Thomas Newman is one of today's top film composers continuing his family's legacy. He has won Grammys and Emmys and he's been nominated for 14 Oscars. He was born Oct. 20, 1955 in Los Angeles. He is the son of legendary 20th Century Fox film composer Alfred Newman. His uncles Lionel and Emil Newman, his brother David and sister Maria Newman and cousins Randy and Joey Newman are all film composers. He took violin lessons as a child. He studied composition for two years at USC and then transferred to Yale where he earned a Bachelor of Arts and Master of Music. He met Stephen Sondheim at Yale so he started out working on Sondheim musicals. He was also in the rock band The Innocents. His first score was for an episode of the 1979 TV series The Paper Chase assigned by his uncle Emil. Then he worked with John Williams on the 1983 film Return of the Jedi. His first film score was for the 1984 film Reckless followed by Revenge of the Nerds, Grandview USA and Desperately Seeking Susan. He was nominated for Oscars for the 1995 films The Shawshank Redemption and Little Women. He was also nominated and he won a Grammy for the 2000 film American Beauty. And he won an Emmy and two Grammys for the HBO series Six Feet Under. He has also won Grammys for WALL-E and Skyfall. American Beauty director Sam Mendes hired Newman to score his 2002 film Road To Perdition. The film is set in the 1920s and that's the era Newman is trying to evoke. He does this mostly with his own piano playing though the soundtrack also includes music by Fletcher Henderson and others. The soundtrack is available on CD. Recent scores include The Iron Lady, Skyfall, Saving Mr. Banks, the Netflix documentary series Five Came Back and the Hulu series Castle Rock. His next film Ad Astra will be released May 2019. The Newman family legacy is in good hands. Here's Thomas Newman performing Road To Chicago as it appeared in the 2002 film Road To Perdition.
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