Was it MacDermot

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Arthur Terence Galt MacDermot (born December 18, 1928 in Montreal - † December 17, 2018 ) was a Canadian composer , best known as the composer of the musical Hair .

Career

As a child he received a broad musical education ( recorder , violin , piano ). He grew up in Toronto, where his father TWL MacDermot was principal of Upper Canada College, and studied at Bishop's University in Lennoxville near Quebec with a bachelor's degree in English and history in 1950. 1950 to 1953 he also studied organ and composition at the University of Cape Town , South Africa, where his father was the Canadian High Commissioner for South Africa. The African rhythms he heard in South Africa later influenced his compositions, for example the African Waltz , which was written in South Africa and interpreted by Cannonball Adderley and John Dankworth and received a Grammy Award in the jazz and instrumental composition category and an Ivor Novello in 1961 Award in Great Britain. From 1954 he worked in his hometown of Montreal, initially (until 1961) as an organist and church musician of the Westmount Baptist Church, where he also worked as a jazz pianist in bars. In 1957 he worked on a first stage play, the revue My Fur Lady at McGill University . After a stay in London, he moved to New York in 1963 , where he played in the studio and in rhythm & blues groups. After the great success of Hair in 1967, he devoted himself primarily to composition and rarely performed on the piano himself.

In addition to Hair, he composed music for musicals and operas, including Two Gentlemen of Verona based on William Shakespeare (libretto John Guare, Mel Shapiro), which received a Tony Award for best Broadway musical of the 1971/72 season. It premiered at the New York Shakespeare Festival under Joseph Papp . Other Shakespeare plays for which he wrote music were Hamlet and Troilus and Cressida , the latter in the opera Cressida with country music influences. Other musicals were less successful, such as Isabel´sa Jezebel , The Human Comedy (based on William Saroyan , 1983) and The Special (1985). In 2001 he was the musical director of the Hair Revival in New York.

MacDermot also composed masses and choral works, such as Ghetto Suite with poems by Afro-American ghetto children from New York as text. His Take this Bread fair was held at the opening of Hamilton Place in 1973. He has also written orchestral music ( e.g. Incident at Turtle Rock , 1975, State Island Symphony ), chamber music, ballet, dance and film music. He founded his own label Kilmarnock in 1972 , on which he published solo piano albums and recordings by The New Pulse Band, founded in 1979 (jazz and his own compositions).

In 2006 the hip-hop producer " Oh No " released the album Exodus into Unheard Rhythms on the Stones Throw label , which is based on the music of Galt MacDermot. The song Woo Hah !! Got You All in Check by rapper Busta Rhymes is based on a sample from Galt MacDermot's piece Space.

MacDermot died in December 2018, the day before his 90th birthday.

Work (selection)

Musicals

Film music

  • 1970: When Night falls in Manhattan (Cotton Comes to Harlem)
  • 1971: People behind bars (Fortune and Men's Eyes)
  • 1971: Duffer - Moon Over the Alley
  • 1973: Women is Sweeter
  • 1975: Rhinoceros
  • 1979: Hair
  • 1992: Mistress (Mistress)
  • 1994: Forrest Gump
  • 2007: Zodiac

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Obituary for Galt MacDermot
  2. ↑ MacDermot took him on in 1960 on the piano, Stan Zadak on bass and Pierre Béluse on drums, on the album Art Gallery Jazz (Laurentian CTM-6002)
  3. ^ Ivor Novello Award 1962
personal data
SURNAME MacDermot, Galt
ALTERNATIVE NAMES MacDermot, Arthur Terence Galt (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Canadian composer
DATE OF BIRTH December 18, 1928
PLACE OF BIRTH Montreal
DATE OF DEATH 17th December 2018