2/16/18
I. L. A. PHIL REATURED IN OSCAR PERFORMANCE
II. PARAMOUNT’S MUSIC MUSIC CLAIMS
III. MEMBER COMMENT
IV. EVENTS
…Absolutely guaranteed anonymity – Former Musician’s Union officer
‘
…The one voice of reason in a sea of insanity – Nashville ‘first call’
scoring musician
…Allows us to speak our minds without fear of reprisal – L.A. Symphonic musician
…Reporting issues the Musicians Union doesn’t dare to mention – National touring musician
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I. L.A. Phil Plans Centennial Season Featuring Oscar Performance
[We’ll bet the RMAers aren’t happy about this!]
The orchestra kicks off its 100th year in September with an 11-day
L.A. Fest, featuring Herbie Hancock and more, and will perform
live at the 2019 Academy Awards, commemorating its
“intertwined” relationship with film.
Last year marked the 90th anniversary of the Academy
of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and 2019 will see
the 90th Academy Awards as well as the 100th
anniversary of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
It only makes sense that these two Los Angeles
institutions should celebrate together.
The Phil is planning to commemorate its 100th with a
season packed full of surprises, excitement and the
fruits of a blossoming relationship with the Academy,
culminating in the news that the L.A. Philharmonic,
led by music director Gustavo Dudamel, will be
featured on 2019’s live Oscar broadcast.
“If you look at our centennial season, it really is the
manifestation of the belief that an orchestra is this
organism that adapts and tries to find audiences in
places where orchestral music lives,” says L.A.
Phil COO Chad Smith. “So we’re commissioning
[over 50] new works from significant composers
from all around the world, and playing major works
from the past three or 400 years, but more importantly,
we’re trying to find artists or organizations or ideas
that we can engage with that are outside the
normal activity of an orchestra.”
Part of that engagement again comes from AMPAS,
which entered a three-year partnership with the Phil
for the 2016-17 season. “I was at an event a couple
of years ago with Dawn Hudson, and she said,
‘We should think about doing something together,’”
recalls Smith. “I thought that was a really extraordinary
gesture and one that we jumped at.”
One act in that partnership will be “The Oscar Concert”
on Feb. 28 at the Walt Disney Concert Hall, where
Academy Governors and composers Michael Giacchino
(Up, Zootopia, Coco), Laura Karpman (two-time Emmy
nominee) and Charles Bernstein (Cujo, A Nightmare
on Elm Street) will curate an evening of historical
film scores conducted by Thomas Wilkins. Scores
like A. R. Rahman’s for Slumdog Millionaire, Tan
Dun’s for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and
John Carpenter’s for Halloween will be featured.
The evening will close out with a suite from this
year’s Oscar-nominated soundtracks by Carter
Burwell (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing,
Missouri), Alexandre Desplat (The Shape
of Water), Jonny Greenwood (Phantom Thread),
Hans Zimmer (Dunkirk) and John Williams
(Star Wars: The Last Jedi).
During the 2018-19 season, 51-time Oscar
nominee Williams will also be the subject of
his own night at the Walt Disney Concert Hall,
“Celebrating John Williams,” with Dudamel
conducting a tribute to the composer of
indelible scores for such films as Fiddler
on the Roof (1971), Jaws (1975), Star
Wars (1977), E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982),
Schindler’s List (1993) and dozens more.
Montages from these films will screen as the
orchestra plays throughout the evening.
“We always talk about John Williams from the
perspective as one of the great film composers,
and I know that this is Gustavo’s position, and why
Gustavo wanted the John Williams program in the
Hall: John Williams is simply one of the great
composers [even outside of film],” says Smith.
“He’s probably had a more direct influence on
shaping the orchestral sound of two generations
of listeners than any other composer alive.”
Similarly, an evening-long program called “Stanley
Kubrick’s Sound Odyssey” will look at the music
Kubrick used in his film scores. “Famously, Kubrick
used an existing classical music repertoire as the
soundtracks to his films,” says Smith. “The
Academy has their fingerprints all over these
programs as well.”
The Phil’s centennial season will also feature
collaborations with MacArthur Fellow Yuval
Sharon, celebrated composer Christopher
Rountree and Benjamin Millepied’s L.A.
Dance Project, which will perform a dance
production to Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet.
Millepied, who is known in the film industry
for choreographing Black Swan (2010),
during which he met wife Natalie Portman,
returned to Los Angeles after leading the
vaunted Paris Ballet Opera from 2014 to
2016.
“A lot of these projects come back to Gustavo,”
says Smith. “This relationship with Benjamin
is something that’s driven by a creative and
personal friendship.”
The season kicks off Sept. 27 with L.A. Fest, an
11-day extravaganza focusing on L.A.-centric
composers and events, including an evening
of jazz with Herbie Hancock, a concert with
Grammy-winning Mexican-American band
La Santa Cecilia, a Songbook event with
Andrew Bird and a collaboration with Moby.
The season will culminate with a gala Oct. 24,
2019, 100 years to the day after the L.A.
Philharmonic’s first concert.
The Phil came from relatively humble beginnings.
William Andrews Clark Jr. isn’t a name known to
many Angelenos, but his legacy is one that The
New York Times last year called “the most
important orchestra in America. Period.” A
copper baron and arts patron, Clark single-
handedly founded the Philharmonic in 1919.
Of course, situated at the center of the film
universe, the Phil found itself quickly entrenched
in the musical language of the movies.
“The Philharmonic has played a significant role
in the music that has been a part of films for the
past 80 years,” says Smith. “So, there’s been
this intertwined nature. When you think about
back in the ’30s when the exiled composers like
Max Steiner and Franz Waxman were coming
here, those were composers that the Philharmonic
was playing their concert works from when they
were living and working in Europe. Out of that
filmic symphonic sound was also born the sound
of our orchestra. Otto Klemperer was the music
director back in the ’30s, and he invited so many
of those musicians to Los Angeles. The idea that
the L.A. Philharmonic can exist in this space without
having a deep relationship with the community of art
makers that have made Los Angeles the center of
creativity would be silly.”
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II. Paramount’s Movie Music Claims Take a Beating from Ninth Circuit
(CN) – A panel of Ninth Circuit judges seemed highly
skeptical Thursday of Paramount Pictures’ claim that
it had no control over whether the music producer it
hired for a movie released in October chose a composer
who worked with musicians in the U.S. – a major
condition of Paramount’s agreement with the musicians’ union.
The Basic Theatrical Motion Picture Agreement of 2010
requires nearly a dozen major movie houses, including
Paramount, to hire members of the United States and
Canada to score movies.
But in 2015, an orchestra in Slovakia recorded the score
for the Paramount movie “Same Kind of Different as Me.”
Released in October, “Same Kind” is a poorly reviewed
feel-good movie starring Greg Kinnear as an art dealer
who befriends a homeless man to save his marriage to
his wife, played by Renee Zellweger.
American Federation of Musicians of the United States
and Canada sued Paramount in June 2015, claiming it
breached the parties’ collective bargaining agreement.
In its complaint, the union said the movie was being
“hastily scored” outside the U.S. just weeks after the
union had sued Paramount for the same reasons over
three other movies.
One year later, U.S. District Judge Dolly M. Gee tossed
the lawsuit, finding that the Slovakian orchestra members
were not technically employees of Paramount, since Paramount
had hired production company Skodam Films to do the bulk
of the work making and shooting the movie. Skodam, in turn,
had hired a music composer who had hired the orchestra.
The collective bargaining agreement does not describe
scenarios with co-producers or more than one producer,
Gee wrote. And under the agreement, the single producer
must also be the employer of the musicians for them to
be covered by the agreement.
The union appealed that decision, and a three-judge panel
heard arguments on the case Thursday.
Arguing for the union, attorney Robert Alexander said that
the district court had based its ruling on an inaccurate
assessment of the collective bargaining agreement.
“The reason that’s an improper interpretation is that the
whole purpose is to require Paramount to employ union
musicians when it would not otherwise do so,” Alexander
told the panel. “Paramount easily could have insisted that
the composer that is chosen for this work be one that
assigns musicians in the United States.”
Paramount’s lawyer, Adam Levin with Mitchell Silbergerg
& Knupp, argued that Paramount was not a producer
under the terms of the union agreement and “did not
control any aspect of this production.”
Under the agreement, Levin said the term “producer”
applies only to activities that involve a movie camera,
and doesn’t apply to things like setting up funding for
a movie or securing a set.
“‘Produced’ must have a very close nexus to the
operation of a camera,” Levin said. “That is what
the agreement is contemplating.”
Circuit Judge Marsha Berzon took issue with that logic.
“So you’re basically saying under this agreement
there is no co-production,” Berzon said. “You can’t
have more than one producer. So it’s contemplating
a world that doesn’t exist, is what you’re saying. It’s
just completely antiquated.”
Levin responded, “It doesn’t say there can be another
producer. Furthermore, the verb ‘producing’ means to
operate the cameras to put images on film.”
Judge Berzon seemed to scoff at that.
“Let’s say that I think those are both exceedingly weak
arguments,” Berzon said. “Although I don’t think the
other side’s argument is a slam dunk, the way you’re
going at this just seems not to be there.”
Levin then said that, despite Paramount’s contractual
right to approve or disapprove the composer chosen
by the production company it hired, Paramount had
no control over whether that composer hired musicians
within the United States.
Judge Berzon said that didn’t get Paramount off the hook.
“If they had known that Skodam Films was scoring
outside the United States, they should have said no,
we disapprove?” Berzon said. “Or could have said,
no because we have an obligation to have it scored
in the United States. Could it have done that?”
“No, your honor, because there is no evidence that
Paramount could have exercised any such control
over Skodam Films,” Levin said. “The contract
contemplates that Paramount could approve or
disapprove the selection of the composer. But that’s
a far stretch from approving or disapproving of the
selection to do the scoring work inside or outside
of the United States.”
“I’m sorry,” Berzon said. “I don’t understand that.”
At the end of the hearing, union attorney Alexander
told the judges that Paramount was mounting its highly
semantic defense because it had a good financial
reason to do so.
“Use of music that is scored under the contract
requires additional payments which would be
entirely on Paramount,” Alexander said. “So it’s
in its interest that the music not be scored. It’s
in its interest to offshore the music.”
The panel did not indicate when it would issue a ruling.
[EC: If the film is made by Paramount, they have a point.
But if Paramount is solely the distributor of the film they
have NO say in how, when and why a film is produced.
It’s just an underhanded money grab for the benefit of
a small fraction of greedy musicians and a union that
is dying not eh vine and desperate to get money
wherever they can.]
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III. MEMBER COMMENT
I am very concerned about this report on the
pension fund and the apparently poor
showing in the investment returns.
I wonder why Vince Trombetta is still a
member of the Pension Trust Fund Board.
It has been some considerable time since
he was an officer of Local 47. I realize that,
as many of us are, is a recipient of pension
from the Fund, but why is he still a
member of said Board?
[EC: We’ve wondered the exact same thing.]
================================
IV. EVENTS
DEAN AND RICHARD
are now at Culver City Elks the first
Friday of
every month.
7:30pm-10:30pm,
11160 Washington Pl.
Culver City, 90232
310-839-8891
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2/17/18
RON ROBINSON PRESENTS
NUDESCAPES by Nu Som
Saturday, Feb 17 5-8 PM
Artist Reception Book Signing
and Discussion with Photographer
/ Author Nu Som
and
Art Expert / Foreword Writer
Deborah Zafman
Where: Ron Robinson
1327 5th Street, Santa Monica
When 2/17/18 5-8pm
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2/21/18
GLENDALE NOON CONCERTS
Wed FEBRUARY 21, 2018 at 12:10-12:40 pm
Free Admission
Violinist JOHANA KREJCI & Pianist BRENDAN WHITE
will perform works by J.S. BACH & JOHANNES BRAHMS
(Violin Sonata No.1 in G Major, Op.78).
http://www.glendalenoonconcerts.blogspot.com
Thank you!
Jacqueline Suzuki
Curator, Glendale Noon Concerts
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3/11/18
“WESTERN SUITE” by
Adrienne Albert
Sunday, March 11th, 2018 at 6 pm.
The Southeast Symphony, under the direction of Anthony Parnther,
will be performing my “WESTERN SUITE” for orchestra along
with works by Leonard Bernstein, Rimsky Korsakov, and Capuzzi:
Concerto for Double Bass.
Sunday, March 11th, 2018
Time: 6 PM
Place: First Congregational Church of Los Angeles
540 S. Commonwealth Ave. Los Angeles, CA 90020
https://www.southeastsymphony.com/march-11-scheherazade
More information will be coming soon!!
All best,
Adrienne
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UNTIL NEXT TIME, THE COMMITTEE FOR A MORE RESPONSIBLE LOCAL 47