Joey Newman (born September 9, 1976) is an American film composer, orchestrator, arranger and conductor working in the fields of film and television.[1]
Raised in Los Angeles, California, Joey was drumming at the age of three, owning his first set of drums at the age of eight. At nine, he was chosen for the boys' chorus of The Los Angeles Master Chorale where he performed with The Deutsche Oper Berlin Company's production of Tosca and Die Tote Stadt, featuring Plácido Domingo. That same year, he performed in the boys' chorus of La Boheme at UCLA's Royce Hall. At the age of 11, he studied piano under the tutelage of Herb Donaldson. He began his serious approach to drumming under the instruction of veteran drummer, Michael Barsimanto.
After college, Newman returned to Los Angeles where he began his career working in television with Emmy-winning composer W.G. "Snuffy" Walden. He co-composed the final seasons of the TV series Once and Again and Providence. Newman also provided orchestrations for Aaron Sorkin's The West Wing among other primetime dramas and sitcoms.
Newman has composed the music to features, network/cable television series, and video games. As a conductor and orchestrator, Joey has worked across the media spectrum including conducting alongside Michael Tilson Thomas and John Williams. From 2001–2006, Joey composed the orchestral score to NCsoft's Lineage, one of the biggest online role-playing games in history.
For six seasons, Joey composed the score to the everyday life of the Roloff family in TLC's docu-series, Little People, Big World, including the Grand Canyon episode in season 3 for which he was nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Music Composition for a Series (Original Dramatic Score).[3] Joey's music can be heard on the ABC comedy The Middle. He composed the score for the 2012 feature film Any Day Now and provided a string arrangement for Rufus Wainwright's song "Metaphorical Blanket".
Newman composed the score for the 2013 animated short film, Adam and Dog, directed by Walt Disney animator, Minkyu Lee; the film was Oscar-nominated.[4] In late 2016, Newman composed the score to Stephen Vitale's Star Wars fan film Hoshino, starring Anna Akana.[5] The film has over 4 million views on YouTube.