James Newton Howard collection
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Scope and Content
Orchestrations, sketches, orchestra parts, and related materials of musician/composer James Newton Howard. The collection contains limited materials from the early part of Howard's career in the music industry, and extensive materials from his later endeavors in the film industry and television industry. The collection ranges from the mid-1980s to the present.
Dates
- Creation: 1987 - 2022
Conditions Governing Access
COLLECTION STORED OFF-SITE. Advance notice required for access.
Conditions Governing Use
Students and researchers may use materials from this collection in a USC Libraries reading room only. Due to copyright restrictions, under no circumstances may anything from this collection be copied or reproduced in any way without written permission from the copyright owner. However, reproductions MAY be used by USC faculty members in the classroom for academic purposes under the fair use provision of copyright law, provided that sufficient advance notice is given to the Cinematic Arts Library.
Rights Statement for Archival Description
Finding aid description and metadata are licensed under an Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license.
Biographical Note
James Newton Howard was born on June 9, 1951, in Los Angeles, CA. His career as a professional musician began in the early 1970s after finishing his piano studies at the University of Southern California. In 1975 James joined the band of one of the most popular artists of all time, Elton John, and later went on to collaborate with many other famous musicians. In the late 1980s, he turned his attention to composing film music beginning with the comedy Head Office in 1986. Since that time, he has composed the music for such films as The Prince of Tides (1991), The Fugitive, (1993), The Village (2004), Michael Clayton (2007), and Defiance (2008), all of which have received Academy Award nominations for Best Original Score. He has established a reputation as one of Hollywood's elite film composers and with each new project, he continues to set new standards for his craft.
Extent
401.63 Linear Feet (272 boxes)
Language of Materials
English
Abstract
Extensive collection of film music, television music, and related materials by musician/composer James Newton Howard from 1987 to the present.
Arrangement
The James Newton Howard collection is divided into three series: Film Music, Television Music, Concert Works, and Other Works. Each series is further broken down into subseries based on the project title, and each subseries is broken down to the file level based on the type of material contained in each. Film Music and Television Music are arranged chronologically, while Other Works is arranged alphabetically. Larger scores are contained in the LF (Large Film) boxes, while smaller scores are contained in the SF (Small Film) boxes. Some of the boxes containing material described under smaller series have corresponding box prefixes (e.g. "OW" for "Other Works").
Glossary
Booth Score - A copy of orchestrations for the control booth at a recording session.
Breakdown Sheet - A list of all the music to be played at a recording session.
Conductor Score - A copy of orchestrations for the conductor at a recording session. This score often contains original annotations of changes made to the music during the recording session.
Engineer Score - A copy of orchestrations for the sound engineer at a recording session.
Holographic Sketches - Sketches that are in the original handwriting of the composer.
Librarian Score - A copy of orchestrations for the copyist to reference at a recording session.
Orchestrations - The final drafts of composed music produced by the orchestrator. This music is then given to the copyist to produce parts for studio musicians.
Parts - Music that is extracted from the orchestrations and printed for individual musicians of an orchestra to play during a recording session.
Prerecord Parts - Music that is recorded prior to a recording session and combined with music recorded at the session.
Sketches - The early drafts of composed music given to the orchestrator by the composer.
Source Music - Music already in existence that is used again for a later project.
Processing Information
The USC Libraries Special Collections unit transferred custody of the James Newton Howard collection to the USC Libraries Cinematic Arts Library on November 22, 2021. The collection's box labels still list Special Collections as the holding repository.
- Title
- James Newton Howard collection 0075
- Status
- Completed
- Author
- John Brockman, Sue Luftschein
- Date
- 2013
- Description rules
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
- Language of description
- English
- Script of description
- Latin
- Language of description note
- English
Revision Statements
- 2018 December: Finding aid updated by Sue Luftschein to include recent accruals.
- 2021 September: Finding aid updated by Bo Doub to include material added to the collection from accrual no. 2021-050.
- 2021 November: Bo Doub transferred the finding aid from the Special Collections repository to the Cinematic Arts Library repository to reflect a transfer of custody between the USC Libraries units.
- 2023 May: Finding aid updated by Bo Doub to include material added to the collection from accrual no. 2023-001. See accession record for a scanned "score reference list" of this material.
Repository Details
Part of the USC Libraries Cinematic Arts Library Repository
Doheny Memorial Library G4
3550 Trousdale Parkway
Los Angeles California 90089-0185 United States
ctlibarc@usc.edu