A Woman’s Perspective About the Music Industry

Panel Discussion

A Woman’s Perspective About the Music Industry

April 12th, 6-8PM, in CSUN Cypress Hall, Room 159

This event is Free and Open to All

Moderated by

Micaela Carballo, CSUN Lecturer of Orchestration

Connor Cook, CSUN Lecturer of Media Composition

GUEST PANELISTS

Gayle Levant, Studio Harpist and President, American Society of Music Arrangers and Composers

Nan Schwartz, Grammy Winner, Arranger/Composer/Conductor

Nami Melumad, Film Composer Dream Productions, Thor: Love and Thunder

Esin Aydingoz, Grammy Nominated, Arranger/Composer/Conductor

About the panelists:

Gayle Levant: Gayle is a studio harpist and the first woman president of the American Society of Music Arrangers and Composers. Her career in the studios began in 1965–66 and she has worked with Ray Charles, Frank Sinatra, Stevie Wonder, The Carpenters, Joanie Mitchell, The Wrecking Crew, Barry Manilow, Céline Dion, Josh Groban, Queen Latifah, Rod Stewart, Christina Aguilera, Michael Bublé, Lady Gaga, and the list goes on and on. In 1969, she began a wonderful, musical relationship with Barbra Streisand. In 1977, Gayle was the first harpist to be awarded the Most Valuable Player’s Award by The National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences, aka NARAS, for her contribution on the harp to the record industry. Gayle worked on numerous television shows and movies and she was the harpist for “The Simpsons”.

Nan Schwartz: Grammy winner, five-time Grammy nominee and seven-time Emmy nominee Nan Schwartz is considered a pioneer for women composers. She began private studies to pursue her secret ambition: film scoring, a profession previously inaccessible to women. Utilizing her lifelong devotion to music and her experience studying piano and singing professionally from an early age, Nan embarked upon a successful career that has seen her score and orchestrate music for countless memorable television series and films, including In the Heat of the Night and Argo. Award recognition quickly followed Nan’s pioneering efforts in the industry leading to a record 7 Emmy nominations, a Grammy win for her elegant and sophisticated arrangement of “Here’s That Rainy Day” for Natalie Cole, two 2014 Grammy nominations (Gianmarco & Amy Dickson), and a 2013 Grammy nomination (The London Symphony Orchestra).

Nami Melumad: Nami is an Israeli-Dutch film composer based in Los Angeles, California. Her scoring credits include over 140 projects in a wide range of genres, most notably Pixar’s Dream Productions, Marvel’s Thor: Love & Thunder (which she co-scored with Michael Giacchino), and the Paramount+ Series, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds as well as Star Trek: Prodigy, making her the first female composer for the Star Trek franchise. She also scored Disney’s Far from the Tree, the HBO Max comedy An American Pickle, starring Seth Rogen, Amazon’s #1 and more. Recipient of the SCL’s prestigious David Raksin Award for Emerging Talent in 2023, Nami gained much recognition for her musical talents, including several BMI and HMMA awards and nominations. Nominated for Breakthrough Composer of the Year (2020) by the International Film Music Critics Association (IFMCA), Nami won the IFMCA For Best Original Score for a Video Game for Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond, earned a Jerry Goldsmith Award Nomination for Over the Wall (2019), won the Hollywood Music in Media Awards.

Esin Aydingoz: Originally from Turkey, she moved to the United States to study at Berklee College of Music, where she recently served as the Assistant Chair of the Screen Scoring Department. Aydingoz toured with Disney Concerts and AMP Worldwide as the conductor and music director of the Coco Live-To-Film Concert North American Tour featuring Orquesta Fólclorica Nacional de México, and conducted The Lion King in her hometown, Istanbul. She is also a composer working in animation, films, TV series, video games, and stage musicals. She was nominated for a Grammy Award in 2024 for her cello arrangement of Rolling Stones’ “Paint It Black,” featured in Tim Burton’s Emmy winning hit Netflix series Wednesday. As a mentor for Sound Thinking NYC, board member of the SCL, and an active leader in the Alliance for Women Film Composers, Aydingoz is dedicated to making the world a better place through music.

About the moderators:

Micaela Carballo: Argentine composer, orchestrator and conductor based in Los Angeles, lecturer of Orchestration at CSUN. She has garnered international attention having won multiple Best Score awards and scoring original music for the Disney distributed film “Norbert” as well as the Spanish-Argentine film, “Hermanados”, among others. Her music was premiered and recorded in Argentina, Vienna, Bratislava, London, Thailand, Costa Rica and Los Angeles. Micaela is a graduate of the University of La Plata, Argentina and with master’s degrees in composition and film Scoring from the Royal College of Music in London as well as the Escola Superior de Música de Catalunya in Barcelona. She was the former Director of Bands of the Argentine Air Force and the conductor of the first female orchestra of the Army Forces in Argentina. As an orchestrator, she works for film, TV, and concert music. She recently co-produced the album “The Hollywood Collection” recorded at Warner Bros Studios, and she orchestrated and was the head of music preparation for Netflix’s films and TV shows such as “El comandante Fort” and “The Marriage Up”.

Connor Cook: Connor Cook is a film composer living in Los Angeles and lecturer of Media Composition at CSUN. She grew up in North Carolina, playing bluegrass and Irish music, which greatly informed her growing compositional style. Connor plays button and piano accordion, mandolin, banjo, DADGAD guitar, and piano. She also spent 3 years playing in a steel drum band which further informed her compositional voice. She got her BM in Music Theory and Composition from Appalachian State University.  She then attended Columbia College Chicago to get her MFA in Music Composition For the Screen.  It was at CCC that Connor met her frequent collaborator and co-composer Alexa L. Borden.  Connor has written music for many varied projects with many different homes- NBC, Prime, Hallmark, and film festivals all over the globe.  Her greatest dream is to work on projects that mean something- projects with stories that matter to her and make her want to wake up in the morning.  Connor especially loves weird independent cinema and experimental animation.

Suggested PARKING in CSUN Lot 1

Meters are on the east side of the lot. Then walk east for 3 minutes, past Nordhoff Hall to Cypress Hall.

Room CY159 is in the south half of the building. Enter through the courtyard.