Leonard Rosenman | Artist
Leonard Rosenman was an American film, television and concert composer born 1924 in Brooklyn, New York. Rosenman was instrumental in modernizing film scoring, championing avant-garde compositional techniques like serialism, atonality, and microtonality to help redefine the sound and scope of Hollywood music. With credits in over 130 works, including East of Eden, Rebel Without a Cause, Star Trek IV, Beneath the Planet of the Apes, Battle for the Planet of the Apes, Barry Lyndon, Race with the Devil, and the animated The Lord of the Rings, Rosenman was one of Hollywood's top film composers. Rosenman's parents, Julius and Rose née Kantor, were Jewish immigrants from Poland. After service in the Pacific with the United States Army Air Forces in World War II, Rosenman earned a bachelor's degree in music from the University of California, Berkeley. He also studied composition with Arnold Schoenberg and Roger Sessions. Amongst his earliest film work were the scores for James Dean movies East of Eden (1955) and Rebel Without a Cause (1955). The composer had met Dean at a party for the cast of a Broadway play, and two weeks later Dean appeared at his doorstep wanting to take piano lessons; the actor begun to frequent Rosenman's apartment, and it was Dean who introduced him to director Elia Kazan. Dean also lobbied George Stevens to let Rosenman score Giant, but Stevens preferred Dimitri Tiomkin. He composed the score for Vincente Minnelli's The Cobweb (1955), regarded as the first major Hollywood score to be written in the Twelve-tone technique. His avant-garde music was used for Martin Ritt's Edge of the City (1956) and John Frankenheimer's The Young Stranger (1957). He composed scores for war films such as William Wellman's biographical Lafayette Escadrille (1958), Lewis Milestone's Pork Chop Hill (1959), Delbert Mann's The Outsider (1961), Don Siegel's Hell is for Heroes (1962), and the Combat! television series (1962). He went on to compose George Cukor's The Chapman Report, then Richard Fleischer's Fantastic Voyage (1966). Fantastic Votage is now considered to be the most avant-garde scores in films, it also highlights how well Rosenman's music suited the Sci-fi genre. He provided scores to science fiction movies like Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970), Battle for the Planet of the Apes, the horror movie Race with the Devil, the first animated adaptation of The Lord of the Rings (1978), and Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986). From his vast discography, some standout releases include The Film Music of Leonard Rosenman: East of Eden / Rebel Without a Cause (1997), Fantastic Journey (1998), Bound For Glory (1976), Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970), and Lord of the Rings - Animation (2002). Rosenman earned two Academy Awards for Barry Lyndon (1975) and Bound for Glory (1976). For the latter work Rosenman adapted the depression-era folk songs of Woody Guthrie for film. Rosenman died March 4, 2008 aged 83, at the Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California.
Artist Website: wikipedia/Leonard_Rosenman
Featured Albums: Leonard Rosenman
Related Artists: Woodie Guthrie, Dimitri Tiomkin
