Music-rights organization SESAC plans to co-fund a new foundation designed to support minority film and TV composers, officials announced at last night’s annual Film & Television Composer Awards in Santa Monica.
The Key Change Foundation, created by “Frozen” and “Ant-Man” composer Christophe Beck (pictured above, center), “will provide grants to support scores by emerging film composers from underrepresented groups,” said SESAC VP of film and TV Erin Collins (above, right).
It’s a long-planned follow-up to SESAC Scores: The Beck Diversity Project, a mentorship program launched last year and designed to “make a meaningful impact on the historically low number of women and people of color hired in the film composer community.”
Over the past year, SESAC Scores held six events, involving more than 350 participants (and watched by another 5,000 via live streaming) and hosted by industry figures including Beck, composer John Swihart (“How I Met Your Mother”), agent Richard Kraft and others.
Beck was among dozens of composers honored Thursday night for their work in film, TV, streaming media and advertising. Beck’s “Ant-Man and the Wasp” was the top film cited.
TV composers receiving awards included Danny Lux (“Grey’s Anatomy”), Gabriel Mann (“Modern Family”), Jon Ehrlich and Jason Derlatka (“The Resident”), Paul Buckley (“Odd Squad”), Francois Hasden (“48 Hours”), Evan Frankfort (“Lucky Dog”), Sean Motley (“The Voyager With Josh Garcia”), David Dachinger (PGA Tour Golf) and Guillermo Brown, Hagar Ben-Ari, Steven Scalfati and Tim Young (“The Late Late Show With James Corden”).
SESAC CEO John Josephson (above, left) introduced the evening, a mostly laid-back affair in which composers and music supervisors mingled with publishers, agents, studio executives, attorneys, publicists and others in the film music community.