In 2021, after a decade of conducting numerous live-music-to-film concerts for the classic West Side Story movie, Newman arranged the score for Steven Spielberg’s bold new reimagining of the legendary Leonard Bernstein musical, earning a Grammy nomination in 2022.

As a highly sought-after conductor, Newman appears with leading orchestras throughout the world, including the New York and Los Angeles philharmonics, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, the Schleswig-Holstein Festival Orchestra, San Diego Symphony, Boston Symphony Orchestra, The Philadelphia Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, and The Cleveland Orchestra. In fall 2017, Newman conducted John Williams’ scores for the world premiere of the live-to-picture presentation of the epic film series Star Wars—Episodes IV, V, VI, and VII, with the New York Philharmonic. In summer 2020, he conducted the world premiere of his score for the film Galaxy Quest live with the San Diego Symphony during Comic-Con, and in fall 2021, he was invited by the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles to conduct its inaugural concerts of The Wizard of Oz, live to picture, with the American Youth Symphony.

The son of nine-time Oscar-winning composer Alfred Newman, David Newman has had a lifelong zeal for the creation and conducting of music. An active composer for the concert hall, he has written works that have been performed by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Indianapolis Symphony, and Long Beach Symphony, as well as at the Ravinia Festival, Spoleto Festival USA, and Chicago’s Grant Park Music Festival. He also composed a violin-and-orchestra suite for prodigious violinist Sarah Chang based on songs from West Side Story.

Passionate about nurturing the next generation of musicians, Newman has served on the faculty of the Aspen Music Festival & School in the Film Scoring Program.