Hollywood film composer Thomas Newman releases collaborative album with Rick Cox

Thomas Newman '77BA, '78MM and Rick Cox released the album 35 Whirlpools Below Sound on Cold Blue Music in October. This jointly composed and performed collection of 19 electro-acoustic works has been slowly developing over time. Newman, a 12-time Oscar nominee and six-time Grammy winner, and noted new-music composer/performer Rick Cox have been collaborating for 25 years.

The music has been called both enigmatic and eclectic, exploring a somewhat improvisational world through its series of sometimes interlinked, sometimes contrasting pieces built of often mysterious and fantastical juxtapositions of sounds.

Newman is a highly regarded film-music composer (WALL-E, The Shawshank Redemption, American Beauty) who has also written non-film-related works for such ensembles as the Kronos Quartet and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. While at Yale, Newman studied with Jacob Druckman, Bruce MacCombie, and Robert Moore.

35 Whirlpools Below Sound represents a departure away from Newman's previous and acclaimed work in film music. (Newman has performed Cox's music on two previous Cold Blue CDs.) Cox, who has collaborated and recorded with Jon Hassell, Thomas Newman, Ry Cooder, Peter Freeman, Chas Smith, and many others, has had his music released on seven previous Cold Blue CDs.