Compiled by Patrick Russ
Dimitri Tiomkin owned his own publishing company, Volta Music; however for most of his early career he composed film music under work-for-hire agreements for a number of film studios and companies, such as Allied Artists, Columbia Pictures, MGM, Monogram, Paramount, RKO, Selznick, 20th Century Fox, United Artists, Universal, and Warner Bros. At the same time, the film studios published his music under a number of often affiliated companies, such as Bourne Music (Universal), EMI (Columbia/MGM), Famous Music (Paramount), and Warner/Chappell (Warner Bros.). And finally, studios and publishing companies acquired publication rights to his music either through agreements or through acquiring or servicing other companies catalogs, enter Disney (Fox), Hal Leonard (Universal and others), Sony Music (Columbia, MGM, United Artists), Wise Music (Warner Bros.), and Zinfonia (Warner/Chappell).
The use and exploitation of musical works under copyright is subject to license and permission is needed to make an arrangement, to include in a film production (synchronization), to record and distribute a recording (mechanical license), to reprint an existing work, or to perform as part of a staged work (grand rights).
Wending one’s way through the sometimes confusing labyrinth of rights and permissions can be daunting. We hope this guide will help you find what you are looking for or lead to a path with answers.
Everything you need to find and perform music by Dimitri Tiomkin
Dimitri Tiomkin portrait, circa mid-1920s
Research: To find music scores and other archival material see the listings below for the British Film Institute, the Dimitri Tiomkin Collection at USC, dimitritiomkin.com, the Warner Bros. Archives at USC.
Music publications and rentals: To find published music for purchase or rental, see Hal Leonard Corp., IMG Artists, Zinfonia.
Rights clearance: If you know the copyright holder, consult the list below for their contact information. If not, see ASCAP ACE, below, to find the name of the copyright holder and then consult the list. For rights clearance for Dimitri Tiomkin’s publishing company, Volta Music, see Greenberg Traurig, LLP, below.
Concert performances: Dimitri Tiomkin’s music is performed in music concerts around the world. To find concerts near you, see Movies in Concert, below.
This information is provided as a courtesy and is for personal use only. It is not to be considered legal advice and not to be relied upon for any legal matters.
ASCAP ACE SEARCH
As both a composer member (Dimitri Tiomkin) and music publisher member (Volta Music) of ASCAP, current ownership of film music copyrights can be found by searching the ASCAP ACE database.
On ACE, enter the film title and composer. Press “Expand” on the resulting entry to display the controlling publisher and a contact person. ACE contact email and phone information are sometimes outdated but the name of the administrator/owner is correct.
ALFRED PUBLISHING
Warner Bros Music sold Warner Bros Publications to Alfred Publishing, which prints and distributes Warner Bros Publications as well as Belwin, Harms Music, Warner/Chappell and many others.
Alfred Music Publishing
P.O. Box 10003
Van Nuys, CA 91410-0003
Tel: (818) 939-9100; (818) 891-5999
ALLIED ARTISTS. See Warner Bros.
BOURNE MUSIC
Bourne Music is the publisher for some Universal film scores, including Lost Horizon.
Contact: Marco Berrocal
Email: Info@Bournemusic.com
Bourne Music
35 West 45th Street 2nd Floor
New York, NY. 10036
BRITISH FILM INSTITUTE (BFI)
The BFI in London has a collection of Dimitri Tiomkin material.
Contact: Christopher Trowell
Email: Christopher.trowell@bfi.org.uk
Tel: 011 44 (0) 20 7815 1401
British Film Institute
Stephen Street
London. W1T 1LN
COLUMBIA PICTURES. See Sony Music
THE DIMITRI TIOMKIN COLLECTION
The Dimitri Tiomkin Collection at the University of Southern California Cinematic Arts Library is comprised of 84 large boxes of orchestrated scores from films and ballet: more than 40,000 handwritten orchestrated score pages for over 100 film scores; 6,000 pages of autograph music sketches for films organized by film title; 25 concert suites; 140 original session tape masters transferred to CD; awards including four Oscar statuettes; cue sheets and legal documents; personal and professional letters and memorabilia. Every film score and concert suite from Tiomkin’s personal library is in the Collection. A searchable catalog of box contents is posted on DimitriTiomkin.com.
The Dimitri Tiomkin Collection also houses 2,200 posters and lobby cards from all 110 of Tiomkin’s films, with strong representation for the most famous 60 titles. Many posters are exceedingly rare, often signed by the artist, fully restored, and mounted on acid-free paper in museum-quality containers. Museums wishing to exhibit these works should contact Collection director Sandra Garcia-Meyers. Some posters are on display in the halls of the Cinematic Arts Building at USC and are rotated with those in storage. USC has a poster catalog with photos of all 2,200 poster images in the Collection. The poster catalog is also available online at DimitriTiomkin.com.
Sandra Garcia-Meyers, Director (all film music collections)
Email: garciamy at usc dot edu
Tel (213) 740-8383
Steve Hanson, Director, Cinematic Arts Library
Email: shanson at usc dot edu
Tel (213) 740-7273
Cinematic Arts Library
The University of Southern California
3550 Trousdale Parkway Room G-4
Los Angeles CA 90089-0185
USC is a study facility and refers requests for commercial use to Marge Paris at attorney Jay Cooper’s office at Greenberg Traurig. A good place to begin an inquiry about research or commercial use is the webmail contact form at Dimitri Tiomkin’s official site, info@dimitritiomkin.com.
DIMITRITIOMKIN.COM and TIOMKIN.COM
The official website for Dimitri Tiomkin contains the most comprehensive information available for the life and works of the composer. The website highlights current monthly articles by author and researcher Warren M. Sherk, a noted authority on Tiomkin. The News page features new research, upcoming concerts, and recent recording releases. The Feature articles section contains Sherk’s newly researched historical articles about the composer’s life and work. Awards and Filmography are comprehensive lists sorted by year; the Gallery contains 2,200 film posters images and contemporaneous photographs; and an Archives section contains film cue sheets and content listing of the USC Dimitri Tiomkin Collection. The website has searchable catalogs for: 1. The Dimitri Tiomkin Collection at USC; 2. 2,200 poster and lobby card images housed in the USC Collection; and 3,600 early family letters translated from Russian. A separate section is included on choreographer Albertina Rasch, Dimitri’s first wife for whom he wrote much ballet music.
The website is owned by Volta Music Corporation and the webmaster is MOWA Design Group. Web mail sent to info@dimitritiomkin.com is forwarded by the webmaster to those who can best provide answers and is answered as quickly as possible.
DISNEY MUSIC
Disney owns ABC (owner of Selznick International Pictures), Buena Vista Films, and 20thCentury Studios (“Fox” was dropped in the acquisition by Disney to avoid confusion with Fox News). For the Fox legacy, see 20th Century Fox for Fox music consultants temporarily retained by Disney who are familiar with Fox film music library holdings.
Disney music rights clearance for all Disney-held assets.
Contact: Chip McLean, Senior Vice President, Head of Business Affairs & Business Development for Disney Music Group (DMG), Disney Concerts Worldwide, all record labels, all film soundtracks (including 20th Century Fox).
Email: Chip.McLean@disney.com
Associate: Meg Ross: Meg.Ross@disney.com
Contact: Booker White at Disney Music preparation for other music contacts.
Email: Booker.White@disney.com.
Disney Music rental and publication must be done through Disney’s own system. Disney rents orchestra material on site (no third party) and publishes film scores through Hal Leonard Corp (see below).
Disney Concert Music Rental Library
Contact: Royd Haston
Email: Royd.Haston@Disney.com
Tel (818) 560-3761
Former rights clearance at 20th Century Fox Music (before sale to Disney).
Contact: Tom Cavanaugh, Senior VP Business & Legal at Fox Music, Inc., retained temporarily by Disney as a consultant.
Email: Tomc@fox.com
Tel (310) 369-2868
Some older 20th Century Fox film score copyrights are administered by Universal Music.
EMI. See Sony Music
FABER MUSIC HIRE LIBRARY
London-based Faber Music supplies Tiomkin’s Schott/EAM rental scores worldwide outside North America. Faber Music represents the Warner/Chappell hire (rental) catalog for all of Europe.
Contact: Hanna Poznysz, Hire Library Manager
Tel +44 (0) 1279 828904 (also 828906/7)
Email: hire@fabermusic.com
Score rental income from Faber Music is processed through Sony Music in Nashville, Tennessee. Direct inquiries to Todd Ellis.
Contact: Todd Ellis
Email: todd.ellis@sonyatv.com
Tel (615) 743-1725
FAMOUS MUSIC PUBLISHERS. See Sony Music
GREENBERG TRAURIG, LLP
Greenberg Traurig provides rights clearance for film scores owned by Volta Music Corp.
Contact: Marge Paris, paralegal to Jay Cooper
Email: parisma@gtlaw.com
Tel. (310) 600-6092; (310) 586-0235
Jay Cooper, music rights attorney
cooper@gtlaw.com
Tel direct (310) 586-7888
Tel main (310) 586-7700
Greenberg Traurig, LLP
1840 Century Park East, Suite 1900
Los Angeles CA 90067
HAL LEONARD CORP (HLC)
Hal Leonard Corp. publishes Dimitri Tiomkin’s orchestra concert suites and the music scores or scores and parts are available for purchase.
- The Alamo Concert Suite
- High Noon Symphonic Suite
- Rawhide (TV Theme)
- Suite from It’s A Wonderful Life
- The John Wayne “Duke” March from Circus World
- Thee I Love and The Fair from Friendly Persuasion (available summer 2022)
- Guns of Navarone Overture (available summer 2022)
HLC as also publishes popular anthologies of the composer’s music.
The Dimitri Tiomkin Anthology Volume 1 (vocal/piano songbook with piano solos)
The Dimitri Tiomkin Anthology Volume 2 (online vocal/piano songbook solos)
IMG ARTISTS
High Noon Film with Orchestra is available for rental from IMG Artists.
https://imgartists.com/roster/high-noon/
The High Noon orchestra requires a maximum of 47 players (no violins). The concert can be performed with as few as 38-40 players and lose nothing of the drama of the work, simply by using the minimum string count. Subtitles are available in English or German. Pricing can be flexible depending on the orchestra and concert hall capacity.
IMG performances in North America
Contact: Maureen Taylor, Senior Vice President, Tour and Artist Management
Email: mtaylor@imgartists.com
IMG Artists
7 West 54th Street
New York, NY 10019
Tel (212) 994 3535; Fax (212) 994 3550
Website: www.imgartists.com
IMG performances in Europe
Contact: Michael Freiburg, Manager, Film with Orchestra, Film Concerts Live
Email: mfreiburg@imgartists.com
Please note materials are shipped from Hannover, Germany.
IMG Artists
Theaterstrasse 2, D
30159 Hannover, Germany
Tel +49 (0) 511 20 300 878; Fax +49 511 437 8135
IMDB PRO
Subscription service IMDB PRO offers production information and credits.
M. WITMARK & SONS. See Warner/Chappell
MGM. See Sony Music
MONOGRAM. See Warner/Chappell Music
MOVIES IN CONCERT
The Movies in Concert website tracks live concert performances worldwide which can be reported to ASCAP for live performance credit. The website owner is Flip Janson.
PARAMOUNT PICTURES
For major music clearance decisions.
Contact: Dan Butler, Senior Vice President
Email: dan_butler@paramount.com
Tel (323) 956-5556
For a quick response:
Contact: Michael Murphy, Soundtracks and Film Music (associate of Dan Butler)
Email: michael_murphy2@paramount.com
Tel (323) 956-2915
Attorney Maryjo Braun, Executive Director, Clearance
Maryjo_braun@paramount.com
Tel (323) 956-4697
Business Affairs & Legal – Music
Paramount Pictures
5555 Melrose Avenue
Hollywood, CA 90038-3197
Rights Clearance for Volta Music. See Greenberg Traurig, LLP
RKO. See Warner/Chappell Music.
SELZNICK INTERNATIONAL PICTURES. See Disney Music
SONY MUSIC
Sony Music administers publication rights for EMI, Columbia Pictures, Famous Music Publishers, MGM, and others. Score rental income from Schott/EAM and Faber Music is processed through Sony Music in Nashville, Tennessee.
Contact: Todd Ellis, music clearance
Email: todd.ellis@sonyatv.com
Tel (615) 743-1725
Sony Music
424 Church St. Suite 1200
Nashville, TN 37219
SONY PICTURES
For clearance for Sony/MGM scores in the Sony Music Library.
Contact: Mae Crosby, Director and head of music (“Executive Summary”)
mae_crosby@spe.sony.com
Tel (310) 244-4205
Contact: Tim Ahlering, Marketing Manager, Music
Tim_Ahlering@spe.sony.com
Tel (310) 244-2396
Sony Pictures Entertainment
10202 Washington Blvd.
Culver City, California 90232
20th CENTURY FOX STUDIOS. See Disney Music
UNITED ARTISTS. See Sony Pictures
UNIVERSAL MUSIC PUBLISHING GROUP
Universal Music administers Universal Studios films and administers the rights for Volta Music Corporation.
For rights questions:
Contact: Kelsey Spelich, Music Publishing Coordinator NBC Universal Media
Email: Kelsey.Spelich@nbcuni.com
Contact: Linda A. Newmark, Executive Vice President
Email: linda.newmark@umusic.com
Tel (310) 235-4709
Fax (310) 235-4976
Ed Arrow, Senior Vice President, Global Projects
Universal Music Publishing Group
Acquisitions and Strategic Projects
2440 Sepulveda Boulevard, Suite 100
Los Angeles, California 90064
VOLTA MUSIC CORPORATION
Volta Music Corporation is Tiomkin’s publishing arm and owns the music and publishing rights to a number of his film and television scores, including High Noon and Rawhide, and is owner of the official website DimitriTiomkin.com. Rights for Volta Music are administered through Universal Music. Questions for Volta Music Corp are often best made through the Tiomkin website, info@dimitritiomkin.com.
Inquiries for commercial use of Volta’s holdings should be directed to Marge Paris at the office of rights attorney Jay Cooper, see Greenberg Traurig, above. For questions regarding use of other film scores, see the releasing film company’s music clearance contact.
Volta Music Corporation
c/o Kelman & Chan, CPA
23622 Calabasas Road #350, Calabasas CA 91302
Email: barry@kelmanchan.com
Tel (818) 591-9094
WARNER BROS. ARCHIVE
Warner Bros film scores and production papers for films released between 1918 and 1968 are located in the Warner Bros Archives at USC , thus the full scores and parts for Tiomkin’s ten Warner Bros. films can be found there. His original sketches for these films are housed in the USC Dimitri Tiomkin Collection, along with photocopies of some of the WB full scores.
For information and contacts, see Warner Bros Archives at USC, to search the Archives holdings online.
Contact: Sandra Garcia-Meyers, Director of Archives
Email: garciamy@usc.edu
USC School of Cinematic Arts
3716 South Hope Street, Room 113
Los Angeles, CA 90089-7702
WARNER BROS. MUSIC (WB Music). See Warner/Chappell and Alfred Publishing
WARNER BROS. MUSIC LIBRARY
The Library is located on the WB lot in Burbank.
For permission to perform or receive a copy of a WB movie score.
Contact: Genevieve Morris
Email: Genevieve.morris@warnerbros.com
Tel (818) 954-5706
Contact: George Feltenstein, WarnerMedia Library Historian
Email: George.Feltenstein@warnerbros.com
Tel (818) 977-6807
The WB Library keeps hundreds of beautifully hand-copied “condensed” (three to five lines of music) film scores for reference and copyright, including all of Tiomkin’s WB films.
Contact: Joseph Bille, Executive Director of the Library
Email: joseph_bille@warnerbros.com
WARNER BROS RENTAL SCORES See Wise Music
WARNER/CHAPPELL MUSIC
Warner/Chappell administers copyrights for Allied Artists, Harms Music, Monogram, RKO, and M. Witmark & Sons.
Contact: Pat Woods, Warner/Chappell music clearance
Email: pat.woods@warnerchappell.com
WISE MUSIC
Scores and parts currently available for rental from Wise Music Classical.
- Suite from Giant
- The High and the Mighty Suite
- The Hitchcock Suite
- Land of the Pharaohs
- Old Man and the Sea Suite
- Rio Bravo Concert Suite
- Sundowners Theme
G. Schirmer
2 Old Route 17
Chester, NY 10918
Tel (845) 469 4699
Fax (845) 469 7544
These rental scores and parts were recorded in 2011 by the London Symphony Orchestra, Richard Kaufman conductor.
The suites were previously available through Schott Music Corporation and European American Music Distributors Company (EAM), members of the Schott Music international group of companies.
WOLPER PRODUCTIONS. See Warner/Chappell Music
ZINFONIA
Music publisher portal that combines information direct from many of the world’s largest hire/rental and sale catalogs into one platform. Join Zinfonia to browse, select, and order music for performance.
For Zinfonia, Peter Grimshaw of BTM Innovation Pty Ltd, the creator of the Hire Library Management System, partnered with four large music publishers: Boosey & Hawkes (part of the Imagem Group), Universal Music Publishing Classical, Music Sales, and The Edition Peters Group.
Last update: March 13, 2022.