Kendrick Lamar Invited to Join Movie Academy

By Jon Burlingame

LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – Forty-four were invited to join the music branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, including Kendrick Lamar, whose contributions to the “Black Panther” soundtrack are riding high on the album charts; songwriter Melissa Etheridge, who won an Oscar for her song for “An Inconvenient Truth”; and recent Oscar nominees Dustin O’Halloran and Hauschka (“Lion”), Sufjan Stevens (“Call Me By Your Name”), Carlinhos Brown (“Rio”) and Benoit Charest (“The Triplets of Belleville”).

Wendy Melvoin and Lisa Coleman, whose work with Prince catapulted them into the limelight and who have gone on to do films (“Dangerous Minds”) and considerable television, were also invited, as were composers Jeff Beal, Fil Eisler and Sharon Farber, whose best-known feature-film credits are in the documentary arena.

Classical composers Osvaldo Golijov, Sofia Gubaidulina, and Joanna Bruzdowicz are on the list, as are other composers from England and the Continent: Daniel Pemberton (“Steve Jobs”), Eric Serra (“The Fifth Element”) and Carlo Siliotto (“The Punisher”). L.A. composers Jeff Rona, Trevor Morris, Rob Simonsen and Nathan Wang are also invited, as were Jason Moran (“Selma”), Chuck D (“He Got Game”) and Questlove (“Detroit”).

World music voices are included, too, among them Gingger Shankar (“Monsoon Shootout”), Nitin Sawhney (“Breathe”), Yoko Kanno (“Our Little Sister”), Emilio Kauderer (“Secret in Their Eyes”), and Indian music directors Sneha Khanwalkar and Usha Khanna.

Music supervisors Maureen Crowe (“Chicago”) and Quentin Tarantino go-to Mary Ramos (“The Hateful Eight”) were invited to join as “members at large,” because music supervisors are barred from the music branch — which is open only to composers, songwriters and music editors.