Garth Neustadter ’12MM wins Emmy Award
Composer Garth Neustadter ’12MM has won an Emmy Award for his score for the PBS documentary John Muir in the New World, an episode of American Masters. The score was recorded at Yale with members of the Yale Philharmonia, the Yale Symphony Orchestra, and the Linden String Quartet.
Neustadter, 25, is a student in the School of Music’s composition program, where he studies with Christopher Theofanidis. He will earn his Master of Music degree in May.
"Winning the Emmy was an almost surreal experience," Neustadter told the Hartford Courant earlier today. He told the School of Music: "I had been extremely honored just to receive the nomination, so receiving the actual award was a humbling moment, and I am very appreciative of everyone involved in the project including members of the Yale Philharmonia, Symphony, and Linden String Quartet." He received the award at the Creative Arts Awards and Ball, which is separate from the Sept. 18 telecast at which actors accept their statuettes.
Neustadter is a native of Wisconsin – as is TV producer Catherine Tatge, who "was looking for people from Wisconsin as much as possible," Neustadter told the Courant. Muir, a pioneering advocate of preserving the American wilderness, grew up in Wisconsin after spending the first years of his life in Scotland. Muir co-founded the Sierra Club and was instrumental in preserving the Yosemite Valley and Sequoia National Park.
Four other composers were also nominated for Outstanding Music Composition for a Series (Original Dramatic Score): Alf H. Clausen (for “Treehouse Of Horror XXI,” an episode of The Simpsons), Ron Jones (for the “Road To The North Pole” episode of Family Guy), Walter Murphy (for the “And Then There Were Fewer” episode of Family Guy), and Jeff Richmond (for the “100” episode of 30 Rock).
Garth Neustadter is a composer and multi-instrumentalist currently pursuing graduate studies in composition at the Yale School of Music. His work has appeared in feature-length productions by PBS, Turner Classic Movies, and Warner Bros. The Baltimore Sun says of his music, “The guy’s a natural, as his soaring theme makes plain.” Garth gained international attention in 2007 when he won first prize in the Turner Classic Movies Young Film Composers Competition. He was subsequently commissioned by Turner Classic Movies and Warner Brothers to compose and produce the feature-length musical score for the film The White Sister, which premiered on the TCM channel. Most recently, he scored the PBS documentary John Muir in the New World, for which he received a Primetime Emmy nomination.
Garth is a five-time DownBeat Magazine award winner in the areas of composition, classical violin performance, and jazz saxophone performance. His achievements have been profiled in USA Today, the Baltimore Sun, Film Music Magazine, The Chronicle of Higher Education, DownBeat, and the National Federation of Music Clubs Review. He has received an ASCAP Morton Gould Award, an ASCAP Young Jazz Composers Award, and an ASCAP fellowship for film scoring at Aspen, as well as multiple awards from the National Federation of Music Clubs. He was recently selected as one of ten finalists in the International Transatlantyk Film Music Competition. Garth holds degrees in violin and voice performance from the Lawrence Conservatory of Music.
