Nan Schwartz(I)
- Composer
- Music Department
It is perhaps no surprise that Grammy winner, 5-time Grammy nominee, and seven-time Emmy nominee Nan Schwartz is considered a pioneer of women composers. Her family legacy includes a father who played with the Glenn Miller band and performed on nearly every Frank Sinatra recording. And it includes a mother who performed such chart-topping hits as "Chicago" and "On the Sunny Side of the Street" for musical legend Tommy Dorsey before going on to work as a studio singer for Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Judy Garland, Henry Mancini, and Sonny and Cher, among others.
But Nan Schwartz didn't immediately set out to follow in her parent's footsteps, instead opting for a career in television production. A skiing accident was the catalyst that brought her back to the world of music. While on the mend, she began private studies to pursue her secret ambition: film scoring, a profession previously inaccessible to women. Utilizing her lifelong devotion to music and her experience studying piano and singing professionally from an early age, Nan was able to forge a successful career that saw her compose, arrange, and orchestrate music for countless memorable films and television series, including In the Heat of the Night and Argo.
Award recognition quickly followed Nan's pioneering efforts in the industry and eventually led to a Grammy win for arrangements for Natalie Cole. (2009, "Here's That Rainy Day.")
A proponent of melodic, harmonically-rich music, Nan's unique style has made its mark in film, television, the recording industry, and symphonic performance. Nan's diversity and depth of experience in all musical venues - themes, songs, episodic television, and film - from synthesizer projects to hundred-piece orchestral settings, have helped create her sterling reputation as one of the world's most talented composers.
Highlights from Nan's diverse career include:
--stylistic scores for a number of television movies and series including "In The Heat of The Night." Nan has earned 7 Emmy nominations for TV composition, including an unprecedented 3 in one year alone (for TV score, TV movie score, and song).
--Grammy Award winning arrangements for Natalie Cole, arrangements for the London Symphony Orchestra (2013 Grammy nominated), Gianmarco and Amy Dickson (2014 Grammy nominations), the Berlin-based Deutsche Symphonie Orchestra, John Williams and the Boston Pops Orchestra (Grammy nominated), Madeleine Peyroux, Raul Midon, Ray Charles, jazz clarinetist Eddie Daniels, jazz vocalists Mark Murphy and Kevin Mahogany, opera singer/crossover artist Thomas Quastoff, trumpeters Arturo Sandoval and Till Brønner
--Two 2016 sold out appearances at Herb Alpert's Vibrato Jazz Grill, in which Nan conducted a 17 piece orchestra in concerts of her original songs and arrangements.
--Teaching at the Hollywood Music Workshop in Baden, Austria.
--a CD series for Warner Bros. Discovery Records entitled "Jazz at the Movies."
--symphony commissions from The New American Orchestra, Doc Severinsen, and The Henry Mancini Institute Orchestra. Her latest opus, "Angels Among Us," is a 15 minute tone poem for solo trumpet and symphony orchestra. 5 of her symphonic pieces, including "Angels," were recorded in Vienna, Austria in June 2016, and will be released in 2017.
--songwriting, including songs for the 2012 Supreme Master Gala, the Emmy-nominated "All The Days" as well as numerous songs for the Latin market.
--conducting orchestras in America and Europe, including the Deutsches Symphonie Orchestra of Berlin.
--Orchestration on the films "Argo, "The Life of Pi," "Godzilla," "Rise of the Guardians," "My Week With Marilyn," "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows, Pt. 1," "Julie and Julia," "My One and Only," "Benjamin Button," "Gracie," "The Express," "Uptown Girls," "Mulan II," "Firewall," "Freedom Writers," "Bobby," "Lions for Lambs," "Next," among others.
For further information and musical excerpts, please visit Nan's website .