Maria Newman

Her father, Alfred Newman, (1900-1970), was the conductor of the original Hollywood Bowl Orchestra.

Her family was of Jewish background.

Newman grew up in Pacific Palisades, California and began studying piano at age six.

At age eight, she started violin lessons and was composing by age nine.

As a teenager, Newman studied with violinist Joachim Chassman, who was a founding member of the Hollywood String Quartet, and played in the 20th Century Fox Studio Orchestra under Alfred Newman (composer).

Maria is the youngest child of Martha Louis Montgomery (born December 5, 1920, Clarksdale, Mississippi - died May 9, 2005, Pacific Palisades, California), a former John Robert Powers model, actress, benefactor and Goldwyn Girl, and 9-time Academy Award-winning film composer, Alfred Newman (composer).

Maria Newman has four older siblings: Thomas Newman, David Newman, Fred Newman, Lucy Newman Whiffen.

She has one half brother, Tim Newman.

Maria is from a large family of major Hollywood film composers:

Maria Louise Newman (born January 18, 1962) is an American composer of classical music, violinist and pianist.

She is the youngest child of Alfred Newman, a major Hollywood film composer.

Maria holds the Louis and Annette Kaufman Composition Chair; and the Joachim Chassman Violin Chair at the Montgomery Arts House for Music and Architecture in Malibu, California, and is a founder of the Malibu Friends of Music.

Her library of original works represents a range of genres, from large-scale orchestral works, works for the ballet, chamber works, choral and vocal works, to new collaborative scores for vintage silent film.

After high school, Newman entered the University of Rochester's Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY, where she studied violin with Peter Salaff of the Cleveland Quartet, and piano with Blair Cosman, graduating in 1984, and earning a Bachelor of Music (BM '84) with high honors (Magna cum laude).

Also in 1984, Newman was inducted into the American Academic Honor Society, Pi Kappa Lambda.

Newman attended Yale University from 1984 to 1986, completing graduate work there, studying violin with Syoko Aki, and composition with Martin Bresnick.

She earned a Master of Music Degree (MM '86), and received Yale School of Music's George Wellington Miles Award.

In addition to her active career as a composer, and performing her own works in concert, Maria Newman has collaborated as a soloist with celebrities Pierce Brosnan, Billy Crystal, Paul Reiser, Randy Newman, and Daniel Stern.

Her works have been performed in such novel locations as the U. S, Capitol Building, Hearst Castle Private Theatre, Washington State Capitol Building Rotunda, The National Archives, the Kennedy Center, and the U.S. Marine Barracks, among others.

Newman and her husband, Scott Hosfeld, who is the Founding Conductor/Music Director of the Malibu Coast Chamber Orchestra, currently live in Malibu, California.

They have five children.

Along with pianist/longtime musical partner, Wendy Prober, Newman founded the Viklarbo Chamber Ensemble in 1987.

With Viklarbo, Newman and Prober have concertized in this country's most prestigious concert halls, as well as for some of the poorest communities in the United States.

The ensemble has been awarded grants from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), the City of Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department, the California Arts Council, the Utah Tour for the Performing Arts, the Delta Arts Council, the Headwaters Council for the Arts, Hawaii Council for the Arts, and many others.

The ensemble continues to present concerts today.

In 1991, Newman began using her own name as a composer.

Newman studied composition briefly with Martin Bresnick, at Yale University, though she received both her BM and MM in Violin Performance.

To date, Newman's original music library consists of over 150 concert works.

In the Summer of 1995, Newman was appointed Composer-in-Residence for the Icicle Creek Music Center in Leavenworth, Washington.

She held the post until the end of the 2004 summer season.

As Composer-in-Residence at the Montgomery Arts House for Music and Architecture (MAHMA), a modern craftsman venue in Malibu, California, designed by Eric Lloyd Wright of the Frank Lloyd Wright family of architects, Newman participates in 40-plus concerts annually in this venue alone.

Her duties at MAHMA include Composer-in-Residence for the Malibu Coast Chamber Orchestra, Malibu Madrigals, the Malibu Coast Silent Film Orchestra, Malibu Coast String Quartet, the Malibu Ocast Chamber Ballet, and the Malibu Coast Chamber Orchestra Solisti.

Newman has held the Louis and Annette Kaufman Composition Chair and the Joachim Chassman Violin Chair at the Montgomery Arts House for Music and Architecture (MAHMA) and the Malibu Friends of Music since 2005.

In addition, Newman tours frequently as featured composer, performer, lecturer and master teacher.

She has been presented with many awards and commissions, including musical commendations from the United States Congress (2009), the California State Senate (2009), the California State Assembly (2009), the City of Malibu (2010), and the Annenberg Foundation (2011).

The youngest of the children of nine-time Academy Award-winning composer/conductor Alfred Newman and former Goldwyn Girl and businesswoman Martha Louis Montgomery, Maria Newman is part of the musical Hollywood Newman family dynasty.

Newman is an Annenberg Foundation Composition Fellow, and received a grant from the foundation in 2012.

As a violinist who performs and records around the world, Maria Newman began her professional composition career using a pseudonym.

"I was terribly worried that I would not be taken seriously as a female composer in what I felt was a highly male-dominated field. My famous family's film musician genealogy also put the notion into my mind that I would not be accepted, much less respected, in the concert music world as a serious composer."

Newman used the name, M. Louis Parker, the name of her maternal great-grandmother, feeling that the name neither indicated that she was a Newman, nor a woman.