Randy Newman Speaks Out in Support of Music Scoring Tax Credit Bill (Correction Appended)

Andy Gensler
·2 min read
  • Oops!
    Something went wrong.
    Please try again later.
  • Oops!
    Something went wrong.
    Please try again later.

Randy Newman, the lauded singer/songwriter and composer, has come out in support of the Music Scoring Tax Credit Bill (AB 1300) and this Saturday's “Keeping the Score in California" concert at Los Angeles' City Hall supporting the California State assembly bill. The proposal, which was recently introduced by Assembly Majority Leader Ian Calderon, aims to retain and increase California’s music film and TV scoring work.

“The studio musicians here in Los Angeles are one of the greatest resources this city has,” Newman said in a statement. “For more than 80 years, Los Angeles musicians have played music heard and admired around the world. In the last ten years or so many filmmakers chose to record elsewhere. Film music has suffered because of it.”

More from Billboard

Citing the success in recent years of the California Film & TV Tax Credit Program at stemming the state’s exodus of film and television work, AB 1300 similarly attempts to retain the “musicians and the scores that are an integral part of every motion picture and TV project, ensuring that California tax dollars invest in jobs that would otherwise be lost.”

The free concert will feature Rickey Minor (American Idol, The Tonight Show) and Siddhartha Khosla (This Is Us), as well as a “surprise musical guest,” is sponsored by the American Federation of Musicians Local 47. Speakers include Calderon; Assembly member Jim Cooper; Rusty Hicks, Executive Secretary-Treasurer of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor; Lolita Ritmanis, President of the Alliance for Women Film Composers; John Acosta, President of AFM Local 47; and recording musicians and composers speaking on the importance of bringing and keeping music scoring work in the state.
 
Endorsing AB 1300 are a number of unions and organization, including: AFM Local 47, San Francisco Musicians Union Local 6, American Federation of Musicians of the United States and Canada, The Recording Academy San Francisco and Los Angeles chapters, Los Angeles Philharmonic Association, Recording Musicians Association of Los Angeles, Society of Composers and Lyricists, LA Chamber Orchestra, Pasadena Symphony and POPS, Santa Barbara Symphony Orchestra, United Teachers Los Angeles, and NABET-CWA Local 53.

“Even great orchestras, in London or Berlin, the greatest in the world, couldn’t do what our orchestras do,” Newman, a proud Angelino, said in a statement. “No one reads like our musicians do, no other orchestras can play jazz or rock ’n’ roll inflected music nearly as well. I think the state should do whatever it can to keep film music here.”

The event will take place on the City Hall South Lawn from 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at the corner of 1st and Main Streets. More Information available here.

Correction Appended on Aug. 17, 2017: An earlier version of this article erroneously reported Newman would be performing at Saturday's “Keeping the Score in California" concert. He is not performing but fully endorses the cause.  

Best of Billboard