External links
- Dennis Dreith at IMDb
- Dennis Dreith Official Website
- The Environment of People, Inc. Website
- Transparence Entertainment Group, Inc. Website
- Dennis Dreith Interview NAMM Oral History Library (2020)
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Dennis Dreith (born June 15, 1948 in Glendale, California) is a musician, record producer and a television & motion picture composer, arranger, and conductor. He is also known as an influential advocate for performer's rights.
Dreith showed a talent for music at an early age and learned to play a variety of keyboard and reed instruments while still in his teens. While in college, Dreith played woodwinds and toured with Paul Revere & the Raiders and The Beach Boys. He later toured with the Osmond Brothers and recorded with many artists including Leon Russell, Giorgio Moroder, Mama's Pride and Firefall, often as a musician as well as an arranger and conductor. He recorded on The Beach Boys “15 Big Ones” for which he was awarded an RIAA Gold Record.
Dreith has been the composer for such films as Purple People Eater (1988) and The Punisher (1989), and is also known in the industry as an orchestrator and conductor of film music scores. His work can be heard in the soundtracks of Jurassic Park , Misery , Braveheart , Addams Family Values , Sleepless in Seattle , Heart and Souls , A League of Their Own and others. He has orchestrated and conducted for several well-known composers including John Williams, Lalo Schifrin, Dominic Frontiere, Marc Shaiman, Hans Zimmer, Elliot Goldenthal, Mark Isham and Cliff Eidelman.
Dreith has also produced numerous jazz and R & B records working with such notables as The Tokens and The O'Jays (arranging and producing several cuts on their acclaimed “Home for Christmas” album (The O'Jays discography).
Dreith eventually became president of the Recording Musicians Association (RMA), a player conference of the American Federation of Musicians (AFM) devoted to improving the lives and livelihoods of working musicians. He held that post for over 15 years.
Dreith was also a member and consultant for the American Federation of Musicians Negotiating Sub-committee for every major electronic media agreement negotiated by them. During that time, he was also AFM liaison to both the Film Musicians Secondary Markets Fund (FMSMF), and the Sound Recording Special Payments Fund ("SRSPF"), where he addressed the House Sub-committee on Intellectual Properties in support of Digital Performers Rights legislation in Washington, D.C. that was signed into law by President Bill Clinton in November 1995.
In 1996, he traveled to Japan where he negotiated and executed a "Friendship Agreement" between the Musicians Rights Commission of Japan and the RMA, which in turn has resulted in the substantial distribution of Japanese royalties to U.S. recording musicians.
Dreith served as the Administrator of the Film Musicians Secondary Markets Fund since 1998 and simultaneously as the Executive Director of the AFM & SAG-AFTRA Intellectual Property Rights Distribution Fund until 2017, overseeing the Japanese Record Rental Royalty Fund, the Audio Home Recording Act Fund, and Digital Performance Royalties under the Digital Performance Right in Sound Recordings Act on behalf of non-featured performers. In 2017, Dreith co-founded Transparence Entertainment Group with industry veteran Shari Hoffman . Dreith serves as the company's Chairman.
Dreith continues to own and operate his own publishing and production company Magic Closet Music , performs regularly with his 17-piece jazz ensemble , and is the Managing Partner of Graef Wine .
He is a speaker at a variety of music education and related conferences in the United States and worldwide including the Cannes film festival, SXSW, and the ASCAP I Create Music Expo. He is a former member of the faculty at UCLA Extension as well as a past member of the UCLA Advisory Board to the Department of Entertainment Studies and Performing Arts.
Dreith is on the board of directors for the charity "Environment of People Foundation, Inc." which strives to ensure that music and the arts remain a central part of our children's lives and growth.
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Musical composition can refer to an original piece or work of music, either vocal or instrumental, the structure of a musical piece or to the process of creating or writing a new piece of music. People who create new compositions are called composers. Composers of primarily songs are usually called songwriters; with songs, the person who writes lyrics for a song is the lyricist. In many cultures, including Western classical music, the act of composing typically includes the creation of music notation, such as a sheet music "score", which is then performed by the composer or by other musicians. In popular music and traditional music, songwriting may involve the creation of a basic outline of the song, called the lead sheet, which sets out the melody, lyrics and chord progression. In classical music, orchestration is typically done by the composer, but in musical theatre and in pop music, songwriters may hire an arranger to do the orchestration. In some cases, a pop or traditional songwriter may not use written notation at all and instead compose the song in their mind and then play, sing or record it from memory. In jazz and popular music, notable sound recordings by influential performers are given the weight that written or printed scores play in classical music.
The American Federation of Musicians of the United States and Canada (AFM/AFofM) is a 501(c)(5) labor union representing professional instrumental musicians in the United States and Canada. The AFM, which has its headquarters in New York City, is led by president Tino Gagliardi. Founded in Cincinnati in 1896 as the successor to the National League of Musicians, the AFM is the largest organization in the world to represent professional musicians. It negotiates fair agreements, protects ownership of recorded music, secures benefits such as healthcare and pension, and lobbies legislators. In the US, it is known as the American Federation of Musicians (AFM), and in Canada, it is known as the Canadian Federation of Musicians/Fédération Canadienne des Musiciens (CFM/FCM).
The music industry refers to the individuals and organizations that earn money by writing songs and musical compositions, creating and selling recorded music and sheet music, presenting concerts, as well as the organizations that aid, train, represent and supply music creators. Among the many individuals and organizations that operate in the industry are: the songwriters and composers who write songs and musical compositions; the singers, musicians, conductors, and bandleaders who perform the music; the record labels, music publishers, recording studios, music producers, audio engineers, retail and digital music stores, and performance rights organizations who create and sell recorded music and sheet music; and the booking agents, promoters, music venues, road crew, and audio engineers who help organize and sell concerts.
Ralph Joseph P. Burns was an American jazz pianist, composer, and arranger.
The Film Musicians Secondary Markets Fund is a not-for-profit organization that collects and processes residual payments from producers and distributes them to film and television musicians. The Fund was established in 1972 as part of a collective bargaining agreement negotiated between the American Federation of Musicians (AFM) and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers.
On August 1, 1942, the American Federation of Musicians, at the instigation of union president James C. Petrillo, began a strike against the major American record companies because of disagreements over royalty payments. Beginning on midnight, July 31, 1942, no union musician could make commercial recordings for any commercial record company. That meant that a union musician was allowed to participate on radio programs and other kinds of musical entertainment, but not in a recording session. The 1942–1944 musicians' strike remains the longest strike in entertainment history.
Production music is recorded music that can be licensed to customers for use in film, television, radio and other media. Often, the music is produced and owned by production music libraries.
Robert Jackson Drasnin was an American composer and clarinet player.
Steve Gray was a British pianist, composer and arranger. He was an active session musician and arranger in the 1970s, and a performer and composer for the KPM 1000 Series of library music recordings. In the 1980s and into the 1990s Gray was a member of the instrumental rock band Sky, and later worked on ambitious arranging and composition projects for big bands in Holland and Germany.
Sven Erik Libaek is a Norwegian-Australian composer, record producer and musician. He composes film and TV soundtrack music and, as the staff producer for the Australian division of CBS Records, influenced the Australian popular music scene in the mid-1960s. In 1982, an album titled Endless Love peaked at number 71 in Australia; his only top 100 charting release.
Albert Harris was an English musician who worked most of his life in Hollywood as an orchestrator, arranger and composer for several of the big Film Studios and for such pop icons as Barbra Streisand, Roberta Flack and Cher.
Peter Jarvis is an American percussionist, director, drummer, conductor, composer, music copyist, print music editor and college professor.
Petr Pololáník is a Czech conductor, orchestrator and music producer. His father Zdeněk Pololáník belongs to foremost Czech composers.
Peter Matz was an American musician, composer, arranger, and conductor. His musical career in film, theater, television, and studio recording spanned fifty years. He worked with a number of prominent artists, including Marlene Dietrich, Noël Coward and Barbra Streisand. Matz won three Emmys and a Grammy Award. He is best known for his work on Streisand's early albums and for his tour as the orchestral conductor and musical director for The Carol Burnett Show.
Music royalties are royalty payments for the writing and performing of music. Unlike other forms of intellectual property, music has a strong linkage to individuals – composers (score), songwriters (lyrics) and writers of musical plays – in that they can own the exclusive copyright to created music and can license it for performance independent of corporates. Recording companies and the performing artists that create a "sound recording" of the music enjoy a separate set of copyrights and royalties from the sale of recordings and from their digital transmission.
The Punisher: Original Motion Picture Score is the score to the 1989 film of the same name. The album was composed, orchestrated and conducted by Dennis Dreith. It was released on July 19, 2004 on CD, it also features a 23 minutes interview with composer Dreith and the director Mark Goldblatt. The interview focuses not only on the music itself but also much about the ill-fated circumstances which concerned the release of the original film.
Charles Cozens is involved in the music industry in Canada as an arranger for solo artists; a composer writing in multiple genres for diverse organizations including chamber ensembles, musical theatre, and television; a conductor and producer of crossover orchestral shows; a performer on piano and accordion in jazz, classical, and pop styles; and as a recording artist and producer.
Stanley Seymour Applebaum was an American composer, arranger, musician and conductor. He arranged the orchestration on many pop hit records, most notably in the early 1960s, including The Drifters' "Save the Last Dance for Me"; Ben E. King's "Spanish Harlem" and "Stand By Me"; Brian Hyland's "Sealed with a Kiss"; and Neil Sedaka's "Breaking Up Is Hard to Do".
Derek Leslie Williams is a New Zealand-born Scottish composer, record producer, conductor and orchestrator known for his scores for The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, Bodysurfer, Children of the Dragon, Come in Spinner, The Crossing, Crush, Frauds, The Other Side of Paradise, Ring of Scorpio, Thank God He Met Lizzie, Visionaries, and for Frank Bennett, Glenfiddich, Sir Robert Helpmann, Grace Knight, Debbie Newsome, Caroline O'Connor, and Torvill and Dean. He is currently serving his 8th term as Chair of the Wagner Society of Scotland, a member of the International Association of Wagner Societies (RWVI) and at the 2024 Assembly of Delegates at Deutsche Oper Berlin, was elected to serve a 5-year term on the RWVI Presidium.
