Composer Showbiz and Celebrity Breaking News

Jazz Tangcay Artisans Editor “Yellowjackets” composers and songwriters Craig Wedren and Anna Waronker jumped at the chance to write the original music and lyrics contender “Sit Right Down” for Episode 7 of the Showtime series.“We were deep into the blood, fragmentation, descent and sanity-shattering music,” Wedren says, referring to the events that the survivors have to endure this season. The producers asked them to write an “MGM, old school standard number meets Bob Fosse.” The dream sequence happens as Simone Kessell’s Lottie asks the adult Yellowjackets to choose a therapy option treatment at her “wellness retreat.” Misty, played by Christina Ricci, finds herself in a sensory tank after picking “Guidance.” She needs it. In the teen timeline, Misty (played by Samantha Hanratty) makes a new bestie in Crystal, a fellow theater lover. Except, Misty’s openness with her BFF during a round of rapid-fire secrets comes to a sad end when Misty confesses she sabotaged the flight’s black box recorder. Mortified, Crystal asks if Misty will “poison her,” to which she replies “I’ll fucking kill you.” Moments later, Crystal has accidentally fallen off the cliff to her death. Meanwhile, adult Misty is racking up the “deaths” after kidnapping and spiking a reporter’s cigarette.

every dinner) it means you’re together for at least 45 minutes in advance which means I’m exhausted and talked out when I arrive.I have a friend here in L.A. who doesn’t drive (New Yorker) and we have a policy that he takes an Uber to get to the dinner, and I’ll drive him home. Dropping someone off at the end of the meal is way more appealing than going together because you have someone to complain to about the meal and/or the other people who were at the dinner.Here are 5 things to do this weekend where you can go on your own…Love The Weekender? Share it with a friend and spread the word!Sign Up for The WeekenderKeith Haring: Art Is for EverybodyThis is the first-ever museum exhibition in Los Angeles of Keith Haring’s work and it features over 120 works of art and archival footage.

Jon Burlingame On the scoring stage at 20th Century-Fox studios in Burbank, composer Jongnic Bontemps is walking around in a “Transformers: The Movie” T-shirt – that’s the animated cartoon from 1986, not the $200-million summer blockbuster he’s just scored. “Violins, play a little softer,” he tells the musicians via intercom from the glass booth behind the stage. “It has to be emotional.” Later, after a rehearsal on a different cue, he tells the string players, “It needs to feel like a warm blanket.” Bontemps is making movie history. He has just spent two years writing the music for “Transformers: Rise of the Beasts,” the seventh in the big-screen franchise, and he’s supervising the recording of the final pieces of the score with a 74-piece orchestra. The film opens Friday.

Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the talks.The goal is to reach a deal by the end of the year, the report said, noting the exact details are not yet worked out.While music sales have risen in recent years, artists and record labels say they are not getting paid enough. And now that music industry growth is slowing, even as fraud and piracy continue to siphon revenue from everyone in the business, the issue is even more complicated.Streaming giant Spotify, for instance, said earlier this year that it has paid out nearly $40 billion to music rights holders since its launch in 2006.

Jazz Tangcay Artisans Editor Composer Daniel Pemberton pushed a few boundaries and “made something really creative and different” when he scored 2018’s “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.” When he returned to score the sequel, “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse,” he knew he would have to “push it as far as we can go.” Pemberton says he had to build the score from the ground up, which was complicated. “You’re trying not to make a score that sounds like other film scores. You’re trying to invent your own language.” Inventing that language took experimentation, research and failure. He explains, “I spent two years researching and developing this score, going through ideas, coming up with concepts and throwing them out.”

The show went on at Broadway’s Shucked on Wednesday night, though New York City’s bad air quality did have an impact on the staging: Book writer Robert Horn and composer Brandy Clark stepped in to play the main female character Maizy, with Horn reading the dialogue and Clark singing the songs.

Vicki Nauman The music industry is once again at the forefront of technological change, the canary in the digital coalmine, this time with artificial intelligence. AI capabilities are evolving at lightning speed, and we as an industry have a window of time to figure out how to harness its power. It’s common knowledge that in the early days of disruption 23 years ago, the music sector tried to put the toothpaste back in the technological tube, leaving a graveyard of innovation in its wake. Fast forward to 2023, and we have labels actively engaging with AI companies, libraries striking deals to enable AI training on their catalogs for future revenue shares, and artists leveraging AI tools for co-creation with fans. We’ve also seen some protective lines being drawn in the sand around high profile artists’ sounds and identities.

J. Kim Murphy “I Love That for You” will not move forward with a second season at Showtime. The network has canceled the comedy series executive produced by Vanessa Bayer, Jeremy Beiler and Jessi Klein after one season. “’I Love That for You’ has completed its run on Showtime,” a spokesperson for the network disclosed on Wednesday evening. “We want to thank Vanessa, Jeremy and Jessi, along with the incredible cast and crew for their hard work and wish them the best going forward.” The news comes nearly a year after “I Love That for You” completed its pilot season, airing a finale on June 19, 2022. The first season was composed of eight episodes, which broadcast weekly on Sunday evenings.

Transformers: Rise Of The Beasts has been revealed – you can find the full list of songs below.A prequel set in 1994, Rise Of The Beasts sees the Autobots and Decepticons joined by three more factions of warring Transformers: the Maximals, Terrorcons and Predacons.The official synopsis reads: “Optimus Prime and the Autobots take on their biggest challenge yet. When a new threat capable of destroying the entire planet emerges, they must team up with a powerful faction of Transformers known as the Maximals to save Earth.”The film will be released in cinemas on June 9, but fans can already stream the soundtrack and score on Spotify and other popular music apps.The seventh film in the franchise features a number of ’90s hip-hop tracks, as well as an original collaboration between Tobe Nwigwe, Nas, and Jacob Banks.

As Filipino Heritage Month rolls into motion, the dynamic Canadian duo Manila Grey, composed of Blame Soliven and Ghostride Neeko, recently shared their experiences as Filipino artists and their deep connection to their heritage in an interview with ET Canada’s Keshia Chanté.

Taylor Swift had quite the surprise during her latest performance!

Bollywood singer Jonita Gandhi, who headlined Toronto’s DesiFest over the weekend, spoke with ET Canada about how growing up in a multi-cultural area near Toronto paved the path for her career in the industry.

A-lister DJ and Swordfish soundtrack composer Paul Oakenfold has been accused of sexual harassment and workplace violations by a former personal assistant.

Jon Burlingame “Star Trek” fans are still buzzing about the music of the final season of “Picard.” That’s because the lavish symphonic score by Stephen Barton and Frederik Wiedmann references multiple themes from throughout the 57-year history of “Trek” movies and TV shows. Barton, who scored seven of the 10 episodes and collaborated with Wiedmann on the finale, says that the idea belonged to showrunner Terry Matalas. “From the very beginning, we chatted a lot about the ‘Star Trek’ we grew up with. This was a moment in the franchise to take a step back, look at the whole picture, and say, how can we honor this?” Matalas has “an amazing, vast knowledge” of “Trek” music, Wiedmann says. “He’s as enthusiastic about film scores as we are – which, in the end, was extremely helpful for us because Terry had such a clear idea on where to go with the music.”

Anthony Ramos, the In the Heights star who’ll soon be seen on the big screen in Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, revealed in a podcast today that he’s signed on to star as Mozart in a Broadway revival of Peter Shaffer’s 1979 play Amadeus.

Pubcaster KCET landed 24 nominations to lead the field vying for the 75th Los Angeles Area Emmy Awards, the Television Academy revealed today, with Spanish-language station KVEA next at 20.

Jon Burlingame Music has always been an integral part of the “Star Wars” universe, dating back to the John Williams scores for the original movie trilogy. So will Emmy voters recognize one, two or all three of the recent “Star Wars” TV series in the scoring categories? Vying for consideration: the 12-part “Andor,” with music by Emmy-winning, Oscar-nominated Nicholas Britell (“Succession”); the six-part “Obi-Wan Kenobi,” with a new theme by Williams and score by English composer Natalie Holt (“Loki”); and the eight-part third season of “The Mandalorian,” with music by Joseph Shirley. All aired on Disney+. Britell spent more than two years on “Andor,” the backstory of “Rogue One” hero Cassian Andor (Diego Luna), including several months creating music that was played on the set during filming – from the Time Grappler’s hammer-banging signals on Ferrix to the alien electronica in the clubs on Morlana and the amateur funeral band playing a dirge for Cassian’s mother in the finale.

Holly Willoughby has vowed to never address the Phillip Schofield scandal again after returning to This Morning.

K.J. Yossman Sean Bean and Miranda Richardson are set to star alongside John Malkovich in the biopic of Romanian composer Sergiu Celibidache, Variety can reveal. Also joining the cast is Ben Schnetzer (“The Book Thief”), who has replaced Rupert Friend after scheduling difficulties meant Friend had to drop out of the project. Schnetzer will play a young version of Celebidachi while Malkovich will play the composer later in life. They will be joined by Kate Phillips (“Downton Abbey”), Anton Lesser (“Game of Thrones”) and Charlie Rowe (“Rocketman”). “The Yellow Tie” tells the story of controversial classical conductor Sergiu Celibidache, one of Romania’s best known classical music artists. He battled homelessness and prejudice before becoming the youngest ever conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra.

Naman Ramachandran Sony’s “Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse” debuted atop the U.K. and Ireland box office with £9.1 million ($11.3 million), per numbers from Comscore. Disney’s “The Little Mermaid” continued its strong performance in the territory, collecting £4.2 million in second place in its second weekend for a total of £16.2 million. In third position, in its third weekend, Universal’s “Fast X” earned £1 million for a total of £13.3 million. Occupying fourth place in its fifth weekend was Disney’s “Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3” with £993,389 for a total of £34.6 million. Disney’s “The Boogeyman” debuted in fifth position with £492,071.

“Star Wars,” but the blessing of being one of the most famous movie heroes in film history also proved to be a curse when he tried to move his career beyond the galaxy far, far away – and into the 18th century to play composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.Hamill discussed how his career changed dramatically on CBS’ “Sunday Morning,” recalling how he and co-stars Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher were blown away by the immediate success of “Star Wars” in 1977 and seeing fans dressed like their characters, “homemade lightsabers and all.”That popularity got even more intense after “The Empire Strikes Back” was released in 1980, and with it the most famous twist in movie history. At that point, Hamill wanted to stretch his acting muscles and show that there’s more to him than Luke, and so he was cast as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in the Tony-winning Broadway play “Amadeus” during its original Broadway run, taking over for original lead actor Tim Curry.

CBS’ The Late Late Show With James Corden might not be airing new episodes anymore, but the music lives on: The house band for the show was among the honorees at this week’s Film and Television Composer Awards.

Jon Burlingame Christophe Beck, Nathalie Bonin, Danny Lux and Gabriel Mann were among the composers honored by SESAC at its annual Film and Television Composer Awards Thursday night in Santa Monica, California. SESAC, one of three leading performing-rights organizations in the U.S., cited dozens of composers and publishers for their music in high-rated shows on network, cable, streaming and local TV, as well as widely seen theatrical features, at the invitation-only event. Beck (“Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania,” “Shazam! Fury of the Gods”) was on hand to pick up awards in the cable and streaming categories, while Bonin accepted for co-composing the Grammy-winning soundtrack for “Women Warriors: The Voices of Change.” Ego Plum was cited for his Annie-winning music for “The Cuphead Show.”

Lily Moayeri A theme song sets the tone for a series. This is certainly the case for HBO’s awards favorite, “The White Lotus,” which won an Emmy for “Aloha” last year. The jungle sounds, exotic tones, yodels and screams laid over percussive rhythms and high-pitched flutes became instantly identifiable and an echo of the contentious characters vacationing at the Hawaii-based titular resort. Considering how iconic “Aloha” became, changing the theme for the Sicily-based second season was a bold choice. Chilean Canadian composer Cristobal Tapia de Veer drew his original musical ideas from the script and from conversations with series creator Mike White. White “wanted the music to feel like it was boiling under these characters,” de Veer says from his studio in Montréal.

Lily Moayeri The impact of “Renaissance,” the main title theme for the second season of “The White Lotus,” is felt far beyond the screen. Since the season’s premiere in Fall 2022, “Renaissance” has ushered in the Killers as they arrived on stage and Dominic Fike has closed his sets with it. But where the song has really hit is on the dance floor. Grammy-winning DJ/producer Tiësto, a huge fan of the series, began including it in his sets toward the end of 2022. His “Renaissance” remix got its official release, with HBO’s blessing. For the second season, Chilean Canadian composer Cristobal Tapia de Veer drew his original musical ideas from the script and from conversations with series creator Mike White. White “wanted the music to feel like it was boiling under these characters,” de Veer says from his studio in Montréal.

Todd Gilchrist editor Twenty-five years have passed since the release of Rufus Wainwright’s self-titled debut album, a rhapsodic collection of 12 songs celebrating his open homosexuality and given suitably cabaret-inspired flair by producer Jon Brion. In addition to commemorating the occasion with an expanded, remastered, digital-only re-release featuring ten extra songs from its three-year, 56-song recording process, Wainwright will on June 2 also premiere “Folkocracy,” an anthology of covers produced by Mitchell Froom. It’s a full-circle moment for the singer-songwriter after decades of sidelining his family’s pedigreed genre: though he’s collaborated many times with his folk-singer father Loudon Wainwright III, late mother Kate McGarrigle and aunt Anna McGarrigle, the album marks the first official folk/ Americana recordings of his career.

Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber is known for being an incredible composer and theatrical producer, whose eclectic rock-based works helped revitalise British and American musical theatre.

When most people think of Eastenders character Lauren Branning, the chances are the first star to spring to mind is Jacqueline Jossa, who played the troubled teen from 2010 onwards. However, long before the actress took over the role, Lauren was actually portrayed by child star Madeline Duggan, who first arrived on our screens all the way back in 2006.

Peter Caranicas Deputy Editor Prominent entertainment attorney Ken Deutsch has switched from one powerful firm to another, leaving Latham & Watkins to join Paul Hastings as a partner and global co-chair of the entertainment and media practice. At Latham & Watkins, Deutsch was global co-chair of the firm’s entertainment, sports, and media group.    Deutsch’s move boosts the already impressive Paul Hastings entertainment and media team. On the transactions side it includes Craig Emanuel (who was named Variety’s Power of Law Honoree this year), David Hernand, Mickey Mayerson, Susan Williams and Sean A. Monroe. In litigation, it boasts the services of Steven Marenberg, Tamerlin Godley, James (Bo) Pearl and Josh Gordon. Like Deutsch, all have been featured in Variety’s Legal Impact Report.

Tim Greiving Every composer who scores a true crime series is dealing with ghosts. Their challenge is to help make a show riveting, dramatic — even entertaining — while trying not to exploit a real tragedy with real victims. “Murdaugh Murders: A Southern Scandal” called for sensitivity from composers Danielle Furst and Khari Mateen. For Danielle Furst and Khari Mateen, the composers behind “Murdaugh Murders: A Southern Scandal,” an added challenge was writing music knowing that the families and friends of victims would likely be watching. “Every time we were working on it, I was thinking about the parents,” says Furst, “listening to what was behind their testimonies and their story and wanting them to feel good about it.”