More Info on Elmer BernsteinSimilar Undetermined MusicSearch Artistopia
Biography
Infobox musical artist | name = Elmer Bernstein| image =| caption =| image_size =| background = non_performing_personnel| birth_name =| alias =| birth_date = birth date|1922|4|4|mf=y|birth_place = New York City , New York , United States|U.S. | death_date = death date and age|2004|8|18|1922|4|4|death_place = Ojai, California , United States|U.S. | origin =| genre = Film scores | occupation = Composer , Conducting|conductor , songwriter | instrument =| years_active = 1951–2004| label =| associated_acts =| website = Elmer Bernstein (April 4, 1922& nbsp;– August 18, 2004) was an American composer and conductor best known for his many film scores. In a career which spanned fifty years, he composed music for hundreds of film and television productions. His most popular works include the scores to The Magnificent Seven , The Ten Commandments (1956 film)|The Ten Commandments , The Great Escape (film)|The Great Escape , To Kill a Mockingbird (film)|To Kill a Mockingbird , and Ghostbusters .
Bernstein won an Oscar for his score to Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967) and was nominated for fourteen Oscars in total. He also won two Golden Globes and was nominated for two Grammy Awards .
Early life
Bernstein was born in New York City , the son of Selma (née Feinstein) and Edward Bernstein. http://www.elmerbernstein.com/bio/facts.html Biography elmerbernstein.com He was not related to the celebrated composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein , but the two men were friends, and even shared a certain physical similarity.Cite news|url= http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/film/3578820.stm|title=Great Escape composer dies at 82 | work=BBC News | date=August 19, 2004 Within the world of professional music, they were distinguished from each other by the use of the nicknames Bernstein West (Elmer) and Bernstein East (Leonard).cite web|url= http://www.bernsteinwest.com/elmerbernstein1.html |title=Introduction |publisher=Bernstein West |date= |accessdate=2012-04-10
During his childhood, Bernstein performed professionally as a dancer and an actor, in the latter case playing the part of Caliban in The Tempest on Broadway theatre|Broadway , and he also won several prizes for his painting. He gravitated toward music at the age of twelve, at which time he was given a scholarship in piano by Henriette Michelson, a Juilliard School|Juilliard teacher who guided him throughout his entire career as a pianist. She took him to play some of his improvisations for composer Aaron Copland , who was encouraging and selected Israel Citkowitz as a teacher for the young boy. http://songwritershalloffame.org/notable_writers/C5008 Biography songwritershalloffame.org, retrieved December 21, 2009 Bernstein's music has some stylistic similarities to Copland's music, most notably in his western scores, particularly sections of Big Jake, in the Gregory Peck film Amazing Grace and Chuck , and in his spirited score for the 1958 film adaptation of Erskine Caldwell 's novel '' God's Little Acre .
Throughout his life, Bernstein demonstrated an enthusiasm for an even wider spectrum of the arts than his childhood interests would imply and, in 1959, when he was scoring The Story on Page One (film)|The Story on Page One , he considered becoming a novelist and asked the film's screenwriter, Clifford Odets , to give him lessons in writing fiction.
Career
Bernstein wrote the theme songs or other music for more than 200 films and TV shows, including The Magnificent Seven , The Great Escape (film)|The Great Escape , The Ten Commandments (1956 film)|The Ten Commandments (1956), The Man with the Golden Arm , To Kill a Mockingbird (film)|To Kill a Mockingbird , Robot Monster , and the fanfare used in the National Geographic Channel|National Geographic television specials. His theme for The Magnificent Seven is also familiar to television viewers, as it was used in commercials for Marlboro (cigarette)|Marlboro cigarettes. Bernstein also provided the score to many of the short films of Ray and Charles Eames .
Broadway
In addition to his film music, Bernstein wrote the scores for two Broadway musical s, How Now, Dow Jones , with lyricist Carolyn Leigh, in 1967 and Merlin (musical)|Merlin , with lyricist Don Black (lyricist)|Don Black , in 1983. http://www.ibdb.com/person.php? id=11383 Internet Broadway Database listing ibdb.com, retrieved December 21, 2009
Politics
Along with many in Hollywood , Bernstein faced censure during the Joseph McCarthy|McCarthy era of the 1950s. He was "gray-listed" (not banned, but kept off major projects) due to sympathy with left-wing causes, and had to work on low-budget science fiction films such as Robot Monster and Cat-Women of the Moon .
Comedies
John Landis grew up near Bernstein, and befriended him through his children. Years later, he requested Bernstein do the music for '' National Lampoon's Animal House '', over the studio's objections. He explained to Bernstein that he thought that Bernstein's score, playing it straight as if the comedic Delta frat characters were actual heroes, would emphasize the comedy further. The opening theme to the movie is based upon a slight inversion of a secondary theme from Brahms' Academic Festival Overture. Bernstein accepted the job, and it sparked a second wave in his career, where he continued to do high-profile comedies such as The Blues Brothers , Ghostbusters , Stripes (film)|Stripes , and Airplane! , as well as most of Landis's films for the next 15 years.
Cape Fear
When Martin Scorsese announced that he was re-making Cape Fear (1962 film)|Cape Fear , Bernstein adapted Bernard Herrmann 's original score to Cape Fear (1991 film)|the new film . Bernstein leapt at the opportunity to work with Scorsese, and to pay homage to Herrmann. Scorsese and Bernstein subsequently worked together on two more films, 1993's The Age of Innocence (film)|The Age of Innocence and Bringing Out the Dead (1999). Bernstein had previously conducted Herrman's original unused score for Alfred Hitchcock 's 1966 Torn Curtain . http://www.bernardherrmann.org/articles/interviews/bernstein001/ "Talk on the Wild Side" bernardherrmann.org, June 2003
Classical
Having studied composition under Aaron Copland , Roger Sessions and Stefan Wolpe , Bernstein also performed as a concert pianist between 1939 and 1950 and wrote numerous classical compositions, including three orchestral suites, two song cycles, various compositions for viola and piano and for solo piano, and a string quartet. As president of the Young Musicians Foundation, Bernstein became acquainted with classical guitarist Christopher Parkening and wrote a Concerto for Guitar and Orchestra, which Parkening recorded with the London Symphony Orchestra under Bernstein's baton for the Angel label in 1999. In addition, Bernstein was a professor at the University of Southern California 's Thornton School of Music .Patrick Russ, liner notes for Christopher Parkening • Elmer Bernstein • Concerto for Guitar & Orchestra for Two Christophers (Angel CD 7243 5 56859 2 6), New York, Angel Records, 2000.
Awards
Over the course of his career, Bernstein won an Academy Award , an Emmy Award , and two Golden Globe Award s. http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000930/awards Internet Movie Database listing, Awards imdb.com, retrieved December 21, 2009 In addition, he was nominated for the Tony Award three times and a Grammy Award five times.
He received 14 Academy Award nominations and was nominated at least once per decade from the 1950s until the 2000s, but his only win was for Thoroughly Modern Millie for Best Original Music Score. Bernstein was recognized by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association with Golden Globes for his scores for To Kill a Mockingbird (film)|To Kill a Mockingbird and Hawaii (film)|Hawaii . In 1963, he won the Emmy for Excellence in Television for his score of the documentary The Making of The President 1960 . He is the recipient of Western Heritage Awards for The Magnificent Seven (1960) and The Hallelujah Trail (1965).
He received five Grammy Award nominations from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences and garnered two Tony Award nominations for the Broadway theatre|Broadway musicals How Now Dow Jones and Merlin (musical)|Merlin .
Additional honors included Lifetime Achievement Award|Lifetime achievement awards from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences , American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP), the Society for the Preservation of Film Music , the USA, Woodstock, Santa Barbara, Newport Beach and Flanders International Film Festivals and the Foundation for a Creative America .
In 1996, Bernstein was honored with a star on Hollywood Boulevard . http://www.filmreference.com/film/68/Elmer-Bernstein.html Biography filmreference.com, retrieved December 21, 2009 In 1999, he received an Honorary Doctorate of Music from Five Towns College in New York and was honored by the American Film Institute in Los Angeles . Bernstein again was honored by ASCAP with its marquee Founders Award in 2001 and with the NARAS Governors Award in June 2004.
His scores for The Magnificent Seven and To Kill a Mockingbird were ranked by the American Film Institute as the eighth and seventeenth greatest American film scores of all time, respectively, on the list of AFI's 100 Years of Film Scores . Bernstein, Bernard Herrmann , Max Steiner , and Jerry Goldsmith are the only composers to have two scores listed, and are therefore in second place for the most scores on the list, behind John Williams , who has three. Other Bernstein scores for the following the films were nominated for the list:
The Age of Innocence (film)|The Age of Innocence (1993)
The Ten Commandments (1956 film)|The Ten Commandments (1956)
Walk on the Wild Side (film)|Walk on the Wild Side (1962)
Death
Bernstein died of cancer in his sleep at his home in Ojai, California , on August 18, 2004. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/3578820.stm "Great Escape composer dies at 82" BBC News, 19 August 2004
The Deep End of the Ocean (film)|The Deep End of the Ocean (1999)
Keeping the Faith (2000)
Gangs of New York (rejected) (2002)
Far from Heaven (2002) (Academy Award Nomination, Best Original Score)(Golden Globe Nomination, Best Original Score)
col-end
Broadway theatre
Peter Pan#Adaptations|Peter Pan (1954) - Incidental music composer
How Now, Dow Jones (1967) - Composer - Tony Awards|Tony Co-Nomination for Tony Award for Best Musical|Best Musical , Tony Awards|Tony Co-Nomination for Best Composer and Lyricist
Merlin (musical)|Merlin (1982) - Composer and Incidental music composer - Tony Awards|Tony Co-Nomination for Best Composer and Lyricist
References
Reflist
External links
Portal|Biography
Official website| http://www.elmerbernstein.com
IMDb name|930
IBDB name|id=11383
tcmdb name|id=15079
http://www.ayrshirescotland.com/elmerbernstein/bernstein_credits.html SWF movie with soundtracks
http://www.sonybmgmasterworks.com/artists/elmerbernstein/ Discography at SonyBMG Masterworks
http://filmmusic.homestead.com/elmer.html Fan website
http://www.bernsteinwest.com BernsteinWest.com
http://www.meatballsonline.com Meatballs Movie Website
AcademyAwardBestOriginalScore 1961-1980Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score 1947–1969 Persondata|NAME= Bernstein, Elmer |ALTERNATIVE NAMES= |SHORT DESCRIPTION= composer, conductor, songwriter |DATE OF BIRTH= 1922-04-04 |PLACE OF BIRTH= New York City , New York , United States|U.S. |DATE OF DEATH= 2004-08-18 |PLACE OF DEATH= Ojai, California DEFAULTSORT:Bernstein, Elmer Category:1922 births Category:2004 deaths Category:American classical composers Category:American film score composers Category:American military personnel of World War II Category:American musical theatre composers Category:Best Original Music Score Academy Award winners Category:Cancer deaths in California Category:Imperial Records artists Category:Juilliard School alumni Category:People from New York City Category:Thornton School of Music faculty
