David Shire

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Shire in New York with pianist Andrew Gerle and bassist Danny Weller (2013)

David Shire (born July 3, 1937 in Buffalo , New York ) is an American composer of numerous films (for cinema and television) as well as musicals .

Career

Shire began his film music career in television in the 1960s. In the early 1970s he managed to switch to cinema. His most important film music is The Conversation (1974) by Francis Ford Coppola - Shire's brother-in-law at the time. The music is mainly written for solo piano and also contains some sound alienations. In this, his most fruitful decade, Shire delivered a series of effective works that proved to be particularly thematically very catchy. Among lovers, the aggressive-jazzy score developed into Stops the Death Journey of the U-Bahn 123 ( The Taking of Pelham 123, 1974) became a particular favorite. The importance of this work is also shown by the fact that Chris Boardman (not to be confused with the racing cyclist of the same name ) copied essential stylistic features of the music for the Mel Gibson thriller Payback - Payback ( Payback , 1999).

Other characteristic works from the 1970s and 1980s are Die Hindenburg ( The Hindenburg , 1975), Fahr zur Hölle, Liebling (1975) and finally Oz - Eine fantastische Welt ( Return to Oz , 1985). Because of the catastrophic economic failure of those Wizard-of-Oz - continued their elaborately crafted score received little attention.

From the mid-1980s, Shire's career flattened out a bit and he began to focus more on working for television. In 2007 he made a cinema comeback with the frugal original music for David Fincher's thriller Zodiac - Die Spur des Killers .

Shire's songs have been recorded by Barbra Streisand , Melissa Manchester , Maureen McGovern , Johnny Mathis , Billy Preston , Jennifer Warnes , John Pizzarelli , Pearl Bailey and many more.

Shire was married to actress Talia Shire from 1970 to 1978. He has been married to Didi Conn since 1982 . He has two sons, Matthew (with Talia Shire) and Daniel (with Didi Conn).

Works (selection)

Cinema and television

On broadway

  • The Unknown Soldier and His Wife (1967, play , music )
  • Baby (1983, musical, music; Tony nomination for best music )
  • Big (1996, musical, music; Tony nomination for best music, drama desk nomination for outstanding music)
  • Saturday Night Fever (1999, musical, songwriter of "Manhattan Skyline", "Salsation" and "Night on Disco Mountain")

Off-Broadway

  • Starting Here, Starting Now (1975, revue , music)
  • Urban Blight (revue, music)
  • Closer Than Ever (revue, music)
  • The Loman Family Picnic (play, music and songs with lyrics by Donald Margulis, author of the play)
  • Smulnik's Waltz (play, music)

Songs

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Shire, David
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American composer
DATE OF BIRTH July 3, 1937
PLACE OF BIRTH Buffalo , New York , USA