Nominated for Victoria, composers Natalie Holt, Ruth Barrett and Martin Phipps attend the SCL Emmy reception. (Photo: Paula Parisi / MaxTheTrax)

The SCL Emmy Nominees Reception drew nearly 200 TV music heavyweights to a Hollywood terrace Friday on the eve of the Annual Creative Arts Emmys and at the start of a week of celebration leading up to the 69th Primetime Emmy Awards  Sept. 16 at the Microsoft Theater. The event, sponsored by the Society of Composers & Lyricists, honors Emmy nominees in the primetime, daytime and news and documentary music categories, with about 40 of this year’s nominees in attendance.

“I’ve been up in the studio all night madly working to finish season two of Victoria,”” said composer Ruth Barrett of the PBS series for which she’s nominated along with Martin Phipps, who created the heraldic theme, and Natalie Holt, both also in attendance from the U.K. “Then comes the Christmas special! I really hope it rocks the U.S.” If the music — a regal mix of original score and classical repertoire to — has anything to do with it, it certainly has a shot.

Ricky Minor, unique among music nominees for having two projects competing in a single category — music direction — says there’s a good chance his vote will get split between ABC’s Taking the Stage: African American Music and Stories that Changed America and Stayin’ Alive: A Grammy Salute to the Bee Gees for CBS. “The last time this happened in the music category was in 2014 when Bill Ross got nominated for music direction on the 86th Academy Awards and PBS’ Barbra Streisand: Back to Brooklyn. “He didn’t win. The votes cancelled each because half liked one and half liked the other.”

The beneficiary of that pattern might be Tom Scott. The former Steely Dan saxophone player is a contender for NBC’s Tony Bennett Celebrates 90: The Best Is Yet To Come, recorded at Radio City Music Hall in New York. “That was a hard show to produce, because it was a very hot stage and they had me wearing a tux, looking like Arturo Toscanini in Fantasia. So I had tails on from about 2 o’clock in the afternoon until about 11 o’clock at night. I was sweating a lot!”

This year’s event, held at the Table restaurant in the collaborative workspace NeueHouse in Hollywood’s Columbia Square, was the first time in many years the SCL has opted to hold its own party, independent of the Television Academy.  Taking the stage to present the nominees their certificates, SCL president Ashley Irwin said “this year, and in the foreseeable future, there will be two separate receptions,” one held by the SCL on the eve of the Creative Arts,  and the other in late August, hosted by the Academy. “Independence is a good thing,” Irwin told attendees before handing out the nominee certificates.

The SCL’s Emmys class of 2017 photo taken at NeueHouse. (Photo: Jacqueline Sallow / BMI)

SCL president Ashley Irwin welcomes 200 guests to NeueHouse. (Photo: Paula Parisi / MaxTheTrax)