Alex North

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Alex North (born December 4, 1910 in Chester , Pennsylvania , † September 8, 1991 in Los Angeles , California , actually: Isadore Soifer ) was an American composer of film music , incidental music and concert works.

Life

North, born in Chester in 1910, took piano lessons from George Boyle at the Curtis Institute Of Music in Philadelphia . At the age of 20 he entered the Juilliard School . From 1933 to 1934 he studied in Moscow at the Conservatory . After returning to the USA , he studied with Ernst Toch and Aaron Copland . In 1939 he toured Mexico with Anna Sololow's dance troupe , where he also absorbed the local music.

North wrote music for documentaries in the 1930s and 1940s . Benny Goodman commissioned him to compose Revue For Clarinet And Orchestra (1946). In 1949 he composed the incidental music for Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller in a production by Elia Kazan ( North adapted his score for the film adaptation of the same name from 1951). The friendship with Kazan brought North to Hollywood, where he wrote the music for the film's adaptation of Endstation Sehnsucht . The composition, interspersed with jazz elements, is considered to be groundbreaking.

In the decades that followed, North created many more, stylistically often - measured against the conventions and romantic traditions of Hollywood - modern film scores that were trained in American concert music. He was at home in many genres ( drama , western , historical monumental film , etc.). His well-known film scores include Spartacus (1960), Misfits - Not socially acceptable (1961), Cleopatra (1963), Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966), The Prizzis' Honor (1985), or Good Morning, Vietnam (1987).

In 1967 he wrote the score for 2001: A Space Odyssey . However, this soundtrack was not used by Stanley Kubrick. North also wrote the music for many songs, the best known of which is the evergreen Unchained Melody . Despite 14 Oscar nominations, North never won the golden statue in regular competition. In 1986 he was the first film composer to receive an honorary Oscar for his life's work .

North was married twice and had three children.

Awards

  • 1986: Honorary Oscar ( Lifetime Achievement Award ) for his life's work as a film composer. He had previously received 14 Oscar nominations, but never won the competition award.

Filmography (selection)

literature

  • Henderson, Sanya Shoilevska: Alex North, Film Composer. A Biography, with Musical Analyzes of A Streetcar Named Desire, Spartacus, The Misfits, Under the Volcano, and Prizzi's Honor. Foreword by John Williams. McFarland, Jefferson 2003, ISBN 978-0-7864-1470-3 (English, with 163 photos, facsimiles, discography, filmography, appendix, notes, bibliography and index, 278 pages, hardcover)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Oscar - Alex North Salute - A Centennial Salute to Composer Alex North - Featuring a screening of “The Misfits” (1961), The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science, Hosted by journalist and film-music historian Jon Burlingame
personal data
SURNAME North, Alex
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Soifer, Isadore (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American composer
DATE OF BIRTH 4th December 1910
PLACE OF BIRTH Chester, Pennsylvania , USA
DATE OF DEATH September 8, 1991
Place of death Los Angeles , California