MALIBU FRIENDS OF MUSIC

MARIA NEWMAN

Louis and Annette Kaufman Composition Chair

Composer-in-Residence, Malibu Coast Chamber Orchestra

Hailed by NPR’s Jim Svejda ("The Record Shelf Guide to the Classical Repertoire") as "hugely musical, bewitching, profound and playful with an instantly recognizable and unusually appealing musical personality,” Newman’s music enjoys an active musical life performed regularly by some of the world’s most fascinating musicians. Newman’s extensive original library has been commissioned and performed by such organizations as the Brevard Symphony Orchestra, Solisti New York, the Colburn Orchestra da Camera, the Malibu Coast Chamber Orchestra, the Los Angeles Mozart Orchestra, the San Jose Chamber Orchestra, the Olympia Chamber Orchestra, the University of Southern California, the Wichita Symphony Orchestra, the New West Symphony, the Icicle Creek Chamber Orchestra, the Omaha Conservatory Symphony Orchestras at the University of Nebraska, the Sierra Symphony Orchestra, the Cortes Festival Orchestra, the YMF Debut Orchestra, the St. Matthew’s Chamber Orchestra, the Azusa Pacific Symphony, the Southern California Viola Choir, Pacific Serenades, the Central Washington University Symphony Orchestra, the Gold Coast Chamber Orchestra, the Santa Monica Symphony, Occidental-Caltech Symphony Orchestra, the Los Angeles Jewish Symphony, Brigham Young University, the Shenandoah Valley Bach Festival Orchestra, Chamber Music Palisades, Martha’s Vineyard Chamber Music Society, the Dorian Festival Chamber Orchestra, the International Harp, Cello Viola and Brass Congresses, the Mary Pickford Foundation, Turner Classic Movies, and many others. Newman's Concerti have been performed and recorded by such esteemed artists as cellist Andrew Shulman, violist Paul Coletti, double bassist Nico Abondolo, pianists Delores Stevens, Peter Longworth and Bryan Pezzone, flutist Hal Ott, musical artist Randy Newman and Los Angeles Opera tenor George Sterne. 

Newman has been honored with numerous musical commendations and recognitions from the United States Congress, the California State Senate, the California State Assembly, the County of Los Angeles, the City of Malibu, and the Malibu Times periodical, and has appeared in subject spotlight articles by many of this nation’s most noted and esteemed newspapers and magazines. She has received two Malibu Music Awards for “Classical Artist of the Year”, a “Variety Composer Legend” Award, a “Debut Award” from the Los Angeles “Young Musicians’ Foundation,” the California Arts Commission, the Utah Performing Arts Tour, and has been honored by ASCAP and many other organizations. Newman’s works are featured regularly on private and public radio, as well as on Turner Broadcasting.

Maria Newman has been a Featured Composer and Composer-in-Residence at music festivals including the Brevard Center for the Arts (2003), Icicle Creek Chamber Music Festival (1995-2004), Songfest (2003 and 2004), the Martha’s Vineyard Chamber Music Society (1995, 2006), the Kairos Festival and Lyceum (2005-2007, the Azusa Pacific Grand Orchestra Festival (2000), the Malibu Coast Music Festival (2005-2010), the Gold Coast Chamber Music Festival (2000-2003), the Dorian Festival at Luther College (2003-present), the Old Pasadena Film Festival (2009-present), the Malibu Film Society (2009-present), Sundays Live at LACMA, the Malibu Celebration of Film Festival (2003), Rancho Camulos Ramona Days Festival (2009-present), Cinecon Festival Hollywood (2000), and Chamber Music Unbound (2009-present), She has served as long term Composer-in-Residence with the Malibu Coast Chamber Orchestra (2005-present), the Sierra Chamber Orchestra (2004-present), the Icicle Creek Festival Orchestra (2000-04) and the Omaha Conservatory Festival Orchestra at the University of Nebraska (2009-present).

Maria Newman is honored with numerous performances annually of her works. Her violin concerto, Lux Aeterna, commissioned by the Icicle Creek Music Center in honor of the late great violinist, Elise Christiansen, has been performed regularly around the globe to great audience and critical acclaim, and has just been released on the Montgomery Arts House Masterworks Recordings label featuring the imminent violinist, Carrie Rekopf.

Newman’s works have been recorded copiously. Currently Newman enjoys seven recent CDs released in 2009 and 2010 dedicated to collections of her own works. MARIA NEWMAN: Pennipotenti (Hal Ott, Flute); MARIA NEWMAN: A Scented Garden of Music, Book I; MARIA NEWMAN: The Art of the Chamber Orchestra, Book I (Malibu Coast Chamber Orchestra; Andrew Shulman, cello); MARIA NEWMAN: The Art of the Chamber Orchestra, Book II (Malibu Coast Chamber Orchestra, Carrie Rehkopf, violin; George Sterne, tenor); MARIA NEWMAN: Music for Piano, Book I (Delores Stevens, Bryan Pezzone, Wendy Prober, piano); SPOOKY SONORITIES: Music of Maria Newman (Malibu Coast Chamber Orchestra and Chorale with Soloists); A HOLIDAY FESTIVAL OF MUSIC AND LIGHT: Music of Maria Newman (Malibu Coast Chamber Orchestra and Chorale with Soloists). Several more are due for release this 2011 calendar year.

Newman was born into one of the most famous and influential musical families in Hollywood. She is the youngest daughter of nine-time Academy Award-winning film composer, Alfred Newman (1900-1970), who was the celebrated conductor of the original Hollywood Bowl Orchestra. Maria Newman was educated at the Eastman School of Music and Yale University, where she graduated Magna cum Laude, and was awarded membership into the American Academic Honor Society, Pi Kappa Lambda.

A bold and versatile performer, Newman’s compositions and performances of both her own highly regarded works and works of the great masters, are consistently programmed in concert halls and heard regularly on radio broadcasts worldwide. In her role as violinist, violist and pianist, Maria Newman has concertized around the world as a soloist, recitalist, and as a member of the Malibu Coast String Quartet and the Viklarbo Chamber Ensemble. As a concert soloist, Newman has premiered many new works for violin, as well as for viola (including many of her own) in some of the United States’ and Europe’s most celebrated concert halls, and was the critically acclaimed viola soloist for the Grammy Award-winning album, Symphonic Hollywood, in a performance of Miklos Rozsa’s Viola Concerto with the Nuremberg Symphony.                                        

As Composer-in-Residence at the Montgomery Arts House for Music and Architecture (MAHMA), a modern craftsman venue in Malibu, California, designed by Eric Lloyd Wright of the Frank Lloyd Wright family of architects, Newman participates in approximately forty concerts annually in this venue alone, collaborating with many of the world’s most celebrated musicians, architects and speakers.

Newman is the mother of five highly artistic children: Martha (14), Isabella (12), Samuel “Sonny” (10), Noah (5) and Joaquin (2).