Michael J. Lewis

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Michael John Lewis (born January 11, 1939 in Aberystwyth , Wales , United Kingdom ) is a British composer and film composer .

Live and act

Lewis began his musical career in the choir at the age of six and was already playing the organ when he was ten. As a young man, he trained in harmony, counterpoint and composition at London's Guildhall School of Music and Drama in the early 1960s . He then began to compose and his musical " Please Sir " caught the attention of actors and film directors Bryan Forbes and Richard Attenborough . Forbes got Lewis the opportunity to compose the music for his production Die Irre von Chaillot , whereupon Lewis quickly established himself in the celluloid industry.

In addition to a few B-Pictures , the Welshman also set a number of top-class A-productions to music in the next decade and a half, including works as diverse as Julius Caesar, Theater of Horror , Russian Roulette, The Horror of Medusa , The Pass of Death and Explosive Command Atlantic . He preferred thematically and dramatically thrillers, action films and horror stories over and over again. For the critically acclaimed, German factual drama The Brutalization of Franz Blum , he worked under the signature of Mike Lewis. In the same year, the musical " Cyrano " composed by Michael J. Lewis was performed on Broadway , which ran there from May 13 to May 23, 1973. Since 1994 he has completely turned away from the cinema and has preferred to compose for advertising (clients include IBM, Ford and 3M). In addition, the record label Pen Dinas has been publishing his compositions since 1995. Michael J. Lewis now lives in Austin (Texas) .

Filmography

  • 1968: The Madwoman of Chaillot (The Madwoman of Chaillot)
  • 1969: The Man Who Haunted Himself (The Man Who Haunted Himself)
  • 1970: Julius Caesar
  • 1970: Upon This Rock
  • 1971: The Brood of Satan (Unman, Wittering and Zigo)
  • 1971: Running Scared
  • 1972: Theater of Blood (Theater of Blood)
  • 1972: Baxter and the Bad Mother (Baxter!)
  • 1973: The brutalization of Franz Blum
  • 1973: diamonds and cockroaches (11 Harrowhouse)
  • 1975: 33 degrees in the shade (92 in the shade)
  • 1975: Russian Roulette (Russian Roulette)
  • 1976: Caesar and Cleopatra
  • 1977: The Stick Up
  • 1977: The Medusa (The Medusa Touch)
  • 1978: The Legacy
  • 1978: The Passage
  • 1979: The King of Narnia ( The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe , animation)
  • 1979: North Sea Hijack (North Sea Hijack)
  • 1980: The Unseen (The Unseen)
  • 1980: The Awakening of the Sphinx (Sphinx)
  • 1981: Beloved Giorgio (Yes, Giorgio)
  • 1982: Island of Adventure
  • 1983: On the Third Day
  • 1983: The Hound of the Baskervilles (The Hound of the Baskervilles)
  • 1983: The Naked Face (The Naked Face)
  • 1984: gang of pigs! (Growing Pains)
  • 1990: The Rose and the Jackal
  • 1991: She Stood Alone
  • 1994: Deadly Target

literature

  • International Motion Picture Almanac 2001, Quigley Publishing Company, Larchmont, New York 2001, p. 261
  • Jürgen Wölfer, Roland Löper: The large lexicon of film composers, Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2003, p. 310 f.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Cyrano on Internet Broadway Database
personal data
SURNAME Lewis, Michael J.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Lewis, Michael John (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British composer and film composer
DATE OF BIRTH January 11, 1939
PLACE OF BIRTH Aberystwyth , Wales , United Kingdom