Photo by courtesy of/courtoisie de Peter Chapman

Peter Chapman earns five nominations in 2023 Canadian Screen Music Awards

Story by Howard Druckman | Tuesday September 19th, 2023

Screen Composer Peter Chapman has earned five nominations, while his fellow SOCAN #ComposersWhoScore Steph Copeland, Spencer Creaghan, and the duo of Brian and Caleb Chan have earned three apiece, in the second annual Canadian Screen Music Awards (The CASMAs), presented by the Screen Composers Guild of Canada (SCGC). These awards honour composers for their outstanding work in media and screen-based industries, and are the first to be juried and awarded by fellow composers in Canada.

For the 2023 edition of the event, a total of 52 musical works received nominations in 11 categories, covering feature film, television, animation, documentary, games, and interactive media. Nominees were selected by the SCGC’s roster of jurors, and the winners will be announced live at the 2023 CASMAs ceremony on Thursday, Oct. 26, 2023, at El Mocambo in downtown Toronto.

The nominated music creators are:

Best Original Main Title Theme Music (Sponsored by SOCAN)

  • Andrew Lockington – Mayor Of Kingstown
  • Brian Chan & Caleb Chan – Builder Brothers Dream Factory
  • Brian Kobayakawa – Jackals & Fireflies
  • Justin Delorme – Diaspora
  • Layal Watfeh – Under Guardianship – Taht Al Wisaya

Best Original Song (Sponsored by Music Publishers Canada)

  • Alexandra Petkovski & Kris Kovacs – “Deathloop: Déja Vu Remix”
  • Craig McConnell – “The Bullet or The Blade”
  • Jesse Zubot, Wayne Lavallee & Marie Clements – “You Are My Bones”
  • Spencer Creaghan & Milen Petzelt Sorace – “My Little Pony Make Your Mark”
  • Stephen Krecklo & Ashley Jane – “How Lucky Am I?”

 Best Original Score, Animated Series or Special

  • Caleb Chan & Brian Chan – Pinecone and Pony: The Sturdy Stone
  • Erica Procunier – The Mystery of Lookout Mountain (Thomas & Friends: All Engines Go)
  • Neil Parfitt – Super Wish: The Legend of Cake-Bun Bottom
  • Peter Chapman – Happy House of Frightenstein: Lucky Spell
  • Spencer Creaghan & Neil Parfitt – Matchbox Adventures: Season 3

Best Original Score, Comedy Series or Special

  • John Rowley – Pretty Hard Cases: Always A Bridesmaid
  • Peter Chapman – The Lake: Midsommar Madness
  • Peter Chapman & Maylee Todd – Workin’ Moms: The End

Best Original Score, Documentary, Factual, Reality Series or Special

  • Andrew Gordon Macpherson – Tales From The Territories: Andy Kaufman vs. The King of Memphis
  • Ben Fox – The Climate Baby Dilemma
  • Justin Delorme – The Nature of Things: Grizzly Rewild
  • Peter Chapman – Cross Country Cake Off: Holiday Finale
  • Peter Chapman – Mary Makes it Easy: Overnight Guests

Best Original Score for a Documentary Feature Film

  • Agatha Kasper – The Long Weekend
  • Ben Fox – Cynara
  • Jonathan Kawchuk – True Survivors
  • Mark Dolmont – Satan Wants You
  • Stéphanie Hamelin Tomala – J’ai placé ma mère (I Lost My Mom)

Best Original Score, Dramatic Series or Special (Sponsored by DGC National)

  • Ari Posner, Amin Bhatia & Joel Schwartz – Ride: Speak Now or Forever Hold Your Peace
  • Caleb Chan & Brian Chan – Panhandle: Machetes Out
  • Jeff Danna – Guillermo Del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities: Graveyard Rats
  • Lora Bidner and Rob Carli – Ruby and the Well: I Wish The Well Would Let Us Be Forever
  • Spencer Creaghan – Slasher: Ripper – The Slaughterhouse

Best Original Score for Games and Interactive Media

  • Andrea Wettstein & Alec Harrison – Windborne: Call of the Canadian Rockies
  • Blake Matthews – Tiny Colony
  • Janal Bechthold – Loki’s Castle
  • Jim Guthrie – Nobody Saves The World

Best Original Score for a Narrative Feature Film (Sponsored by Orchestral Tools)

  • Michelle Osis – Fixation
  • Steph Copeland – Laced
  • Steph Copeland – Outpost
  • Todor Kobakov – Brother
  • Tom Third – The Young Arsonists

Best Original Score for a Short Film (Sponsored by Cinesamples)

  • Amin Bhatia – Jane Goodall’s Reasons for Hope
  • Blake Matthew – Nahuales
  • Daniela Pinto – Diaspora
  • Noora Nakhaei – Printemps
  • Suad Bushnaq – Corvine

Best Original Score for a Television Special

  • Adrian Ellis – Love in Wolf Creek
  • Kristjan Bergey – Swindler Seduction
  • Medhat Hanbali – Queen Rising
  • Sean Nimmons-Paterson & Stephen Krecklo – Hotel for the Holidays
  • Steph Copeland – Designing Christmas

SOCAN congratulates all of the nominees on this great honour!

Photo by Brad Ardley. Left to right/De gauche à droite : Tommy K.W. Lam, NIIVA, Houtan Hodania of/de la SOCAN

SOCAN presents No. 1 Song Award to NIIVA

Story by Howard Druckman | Tuesday September 19th, 2023

SOCAN presented NIIVA (aka Gabriela Geneva) with a No. 1 Song Award for co-writing “Black Mamba” –  a worldwide pop smash K-Pop hit recorded as the debut single by the South Korean girl group aespa – which reached the top of the pop charts in 16 countries, and  K-Pop charts in 28 countries, worldwide, according to SoundCharts.

“Black Mamba” was released on aespa’s Girls album in July of 2022, which went to No.1 on the Billboard World Album Chart, Top Album Sales Chart, and Top Current Album Sales Chart on July 23, 2022. It reached No.3 on the Billboard 200 Chart as well.

“Black Mamba” also reached 10 million views on YouTube in 9 hours, and smashed a YouTube record for a K-Pop debut, with 21.4 million views in the first 24 hours. It also garnered 50 million views more than five million streams on Spotify in less than a week. The music video for the song is currently sitting at a staggering 253 million views.

The song is published by VLVT TREE Publishing / Warner Chappell and peermusic, and co-written by Scott Chesak and Danielle Draizin (both BMI); Michael Fonseca (aka Omega), Shaun Lopez, and Jordan Reyes (aka Jeordi) (all three ASCAP); and Yoo Young-jin (N/A).

SOCAN Creative Executive Houtan Hodania presented the award to NIIVA (and her manager, Tommy K.W. Lam) on Tuesday, Sept. 12, 2023, during her interview with eTalk at the CTV studios in downtown Toronto.

SOCAN congratulates NIIVA on this great achievement!

NIIVA, Black Mamba, aespa
Select the image to play the YouTube video of the aespa song “Black Mamba,” co-written by NIIVA

 

Photo by Infoman/Zone3

Prix Gémeaux 2023 : Clay & Friends come out on top

Story by Eric Parazelli | Monday September 18th, 2023

Clay & Friends, Gémeaux 2023The 38th edition of the Gala de l’industrie des Prix Gémeaux, honouring the artisans of the Québec television industry, was held on Sept. 14, 2023. The ceremony took place at Complexe Desjardins, in Montréal, with two categories dedicated to screen music.

While SOCAN members nominated in the Best Original Score: Fiction or Documentary category were edged out by internationally renowned composers Hans Zimmer and David Flemming (for Xavier Dolan’s series The Night Logan Woke Up), the Best Theme Music: All Categories Award went to Clay & Friends, for their theme song for the TV show Infoman 2022. The song was co-written by Michael Mlakar (Mike Clay) and Samuel Ricard (Sam Rick), and co-composed by Michael Mlakar, Clément Langlois-Légaré, Adel Kazi-Aoual, Pascal Boisseau and Émile Désilets.

We reached Mike Clay on the day after the ceremony, which he was unable to attend, and he had this to say: “There are two things I want to say about this song. For one thing, it’s the only Clay and Friends song I’ve ever co-written with none other than Sam Rick the manager – I can’t wait for his album to come out! Secondly, it’s the only song that I’ve ever written with only one functional knee. It’s also the first time we’ve won a trophy, and I hope there’s no correlation. What a bucket list moment for La Musica Popular de Verdun. Thanks to Jean-René Dufort and the whole Infoman team for this incredible moment. Keep it movin’!”

Congratulations to Clay & Friends, and to all the nominees in the two music categories! For more information on the winners and nominated artists at the Gémeaux, visit the Academy website.