Snow Business: The 2025 Sundance ASCAP Music Café Lights Up this Year’s Film Festival with Top Songwriters and Composers

They included Eric Bazilian of celebrated rock band The Hooters with James Bourne of pop-punk band Busted; Grammy-winning hitmaker Toby Gad (John Legend’s “All of Me,” Fergie’s “Big Girls Don’t Cry”) alongside acclaimed vocalist and actress Antonique Smith, award-winning cellist Dave Eggar and up-and-coming singer-songwriter Mae Mae; acclaimed roots rock band The Wild Feathers, whose eclectic mix of Americana and heartland pop has landed them on tours with major acts like Bob Dylan and Willie Nelson; Nashville singer-songwriter HAFFWAY, whose unique sound is a blend of folk and alternative; and Mexican-Dominican singer-songwriter Ambar Lucid, an artist who transports listeners with her dreamy music.

Antonique Smith’s set featured a special guest appearance by the Reverend Lennox Yearwood, Jr., President of the Hip-Hop Caucus, who addressed the audience about taking action on climate change, before introducing Smith’s version of the environmental anthem, “Love Song to the Earth,” a recorded version of which Smith will release in February.
 
ASCAP Screen Time Conversations, the ASCAP Film & Television team’s ongoing interview series about the craft and business of music for screens, were presented each day at the Music Café as well. Featured guests included composer Jeff Morrow and director Cristina Constantini who discussed SALLY, a documentary about Sally Ride, the first woman to blast off into space. Sally won the Alfred P. Sloane Feature Film Prize, which honors an outstanding feature film focusing on ideas or characters central to science and technology.

Composer Katya Mihailova also discussed working on the documentary How to Build a Library, a story that follows two Kenyan women as they transform a dilapidated, junk-filled town library in downtown Nairobi into a hub for the city’s citizens and creatives. Composer Josh Dibb and director Albert Birney talked about their film OBEX, a black and white fantasy film following a man living in seclusion with his dog Sandy. And composer Jay Wadley discussed creating his score for The Wedding Banquet, directed by Andrew Ahn and starring Bowen Yang and Lily Gladstone, which won this year’s Amazon MGM Studios Producers Award for Fiction
 
This year’s Sundance Awards were announced on Friday, January 31st. ASCAP composers whose music graced many of this year’s winning films in the top categories included: Jung Jae-Il, who scored Twinless, which won the Audience Award: U.S. Dramatic; Sofia degli Alessandri, who scored the music for Prime Minister, which won the Audience Award: World Cinema Documentary; Lukas Frank, whose music graced East of Wall, which took home the Audience Award: NEXT.

Jeremy Warmsley scored the music for the Zodiac Killer Project, which won the NEXT Innovator Award and Niklas Sandahl composed the music for Mad Bills to Pay (or Destiny, dile que no soy malo), which was honored with the NEXT Special Jury Award for Ensemble Cast.

Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe, who scored last year’s Union, winner of a U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award, and who sat for an interview at the 2024 Music Café to discuss that film, was back this year with music in two films: Seeds, which won the U.S. Grand Jury Prize: Documentary (and an Amazon MGM Studios Producers Award for Nonfiction) and Life After, which won this year’s U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award.

Sorry, Baby, with music by Lia Outang Rusli, received the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award: U.S. Dramatic.

Michal Rataj, composed the music for Mr. Nobody Against Putin, winner of the World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Award; William Ryan Fritch scored the music for Coexistence, My Ass!, which won the World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Award for Freedom of Expression;
Sam Slater scored the music for 2000 Meters to Andriivka, which won the Directing Award: World Cinema Documentary; and Karim Sabastian Elias composed the music for Cutting Through Rocks (اوزاک یوللار), winner of the World Cinema Grand Jury Prize: Documentary

ASCAP composers’ music also graced many of the works in this year’s short film category. Award-winning short films included The Eating of an Orange, with music by Coral Rose Kindred-Boothby, which won the Short Film Special Jury Prize for Animation Direction, and Flowers Stand Silently, Witnessing, scored by Alexandra Katerinopoulou, which the Short Film Grand Jury Prize.

As Sundance potentially searches for a new home outside of Utah, or a reimagined use of Salt Lake City for more festival programming, the heart of Sundance’s mission – and ASCAP’s - beats on: a commitment to elevating a diversity of voices that remind us of our shared humanity. 

Read about all of the ASCAP composers who powered the 2024 Sundance Film Festival selections.

For a full list of this year’s Sundance Film Festival award winners, go here.

Check out past Sundance ASCAP Music Café artists.