It would be an enormous task for David Newman to follow exactly in his father's footsteps as Alfred Newman made such a huge impression on an evolving industry. That David has managed to produce the goods under this shadow is testament to his own skills, and the fact that his CV is not as long is perhaps solely due to the fact that he has only been scoring films since the early 1980s. David's brother Thomas is doing very well as a film composer, and in comparison David is sometimes under-appreciated. However he is capable of some great scores such as "Galaxy Quest" and "Ice Age". Many of David's most recent movie scores have tended to be comedies, family movies or animations (sometimes all three) with a number of requests for sequels: "102 Dalmations", "The Nutty Professor II", "The Flintstones II", "Dr. Dolittle II" and the "Scobby-Doo" sequel. However, it should be remembered that comedy is not necessarily an easy genre to score, and the frequent requirement for pastiche demonstrates his flexibility.
Perhaps his soundtracks for Joss Whedon's "Serenity" and the fantasy-thriller "The Spirit" are the start of a trend into other genres. The well-crafted soundtrack for "Serenity" remains true to the television series, and is available from Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk. Apart from some early excursions into TV music, the composer has largely stayed away from this medium. However his track record on the live-action big-screen "Scooby-Doo" movies has resulted in his scoring two recent movies for the small-screen: "Scooby-Doo! The Mystery Begins" and "Scooby-Doo! Curse of the Lake Monster".
The composer's new website has been launched at www.DavidLouisNewman.com.
Among the soundtrack albums available with David Newman's music are the following:
Here are some CD covers signed by David Newman. Our thanks to Petr Kocanda for permission to use his collection of autographed CDs. Click on any thumbnail to see a full size version of the image in a separate window.
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