Thomas Newman

Known for nearly 100 gently expressive film scores that often combine acoustic instrumentation with electronic techniques, Thomas Newman was born in Los Angeles in 1955 into a dynasty of award-winning film composers that includes his father, Alfred. Newman studied at the University of Southern California and Yale, where he was mentored by Stephen Sondheim. After briefly working on Broadway, he scored his first full film, Reckless, in 1984. A decade later, he received his first Academy Award nominations for both The Shawshank Redemption and Little Women; since then, he’s snagged more than a dozen nominations and has won several Grammys. Though he’s best known for lush, sweeping strings and soft piano motifs, Newman’s innovative percussion-focused music for 1999’s American Beauty found its way into dozens of TV shows and commercials. With Finding Nemo in 2003, Newman introduced the buoyant Pixar sound he sustained on WALL-E (2008) and Finding Dory (2016). And when John Williams was unavailable for the first time to score a Steven Spielberg film, Newman stepped in for 2015’s Bridge of Spies.