BMI Film/TV Music Winners Include Hildur Guðnadóttir and Tyler Bates – Variety

BMI announced the winners of the performing rights organization’s annual Film, TV and Visual Media Awards on Monday, with an online unveiling of the recipients substituting for the ceremony that would have been taking place in Beverly Hills under non-quarantine conditions.

The most awards, five, went to Icelandic composer Atli Örvarsson, who won for his contributions to “Chicago P.D.,” “Chicago Med,” “Chicago Fire,” “FBI” and “FBI Most Wanted.” Örvarsson’s overall BMI awards tally is up to 23.

Winning three trophies apiece were Tyler Bates, Brian Tyler and Mac Quayle.

Quayle won for “American Horror Story,” “9-1-1 ” and the spinoff “9-1-1: Lone Star.” Brian Tyler got his honors for “Hawaii Five-0,” “Magnum P.I.” and “Yellowstone.” With these three, he now has 33 awards from BMI. Tyler Bates’ trophies came for the theatrical films “Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw” and “John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum” along with Netflix’s “The Punisher.”

Hildur Guðnadóttir would seem to have already won everything in sight, but she actually awarded her first two BMI awards this year, one a standard award for her work on “Joker,” plus an additional trophy “in special recognition of her historic Academy Award win” as the first female composer to be thus honored with an Oscar.

Mike Post was twice honored, with one of the org’s annual trophy for his work on “Magnum P.I.” reboot as well as a special BMI Spotlight Award for his continued work on “Law & Order: SVU,” the longest-running drama in television history.

With no ceremony possible, BMI created a special page on its website to learn more about the honorees and their winning projects.

“Music is such an integral part of our favorite films and television shows, and our composers’ stellar musical contributions have never been more important or appreciated,” said Doreen Ringer-Ross, VP of creative relations for BMI, in a statement. “This year’s group of honorees showcases the creative versatility within this genre and celebrates the very best in music for film, television and visual media. We’re thrilled to recognize BMI’s talented community of composers and look forward to celebrating together in person next year.”

BMI pointed to the large number of first-time honorees — a dozen — besides Guðnadóttir, including Anna Drubich (“Scary Stories to Tell in The Dark”), Nate Heller (“A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood”) in film. In the streaming category, first-timers included Chris Westlake “Castle Rock”), Dominik Scherrer (“The Widow”), Sonya Belousova (“The Romanoffs”), Nicolas Barry, Rene Garza Aldape and Tomas Jacobi (“Paradise PD”) and Robert ToTeras “Sugar Rush.” For TV, the first-timers were Alex Shenkman (“New Amsterdam “) and Niki Hexum f”Henry Danger”).

Non-first-timers among the dozens of songwriters composers honored included such familiar names as Thomas Newman, Elton John, Alexandre Desplat, Alan Menken, John Williams, Blake Neely, Danny Elfman, Kris Bowers, Ramin Djawadi, Nathan Barr and Ramin Djawadi.

A less expected name, perhaps: the late bluesman John Lee Hooker, who died in 2001, was awarded alongside Tree Adams for the music of “NCIS: New Orleans.”