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Medieval and Renaissance Periods

Tielman Susato

Tielman Susato (also known by Tylman) (c. 1510/15 – after 1570 - estimate dates). You can’t find very many trombonists in basic music history textbooks, but some music historians believe that he was born in Soest (Netherlands) and his presence in Sweden is documented until 1570.

While Susato's exact place of birth is unknown, some scholars believe that because of his name—Susato meaning de Soest, of the town of Soest — he may be from the town of that name in Westphalia, or the town of Soest in The Netherlands.

Not much is known about his early life, but he begins appearing in various Antwerp archives of around 1530 working as a calligrapher as well as an instrumentalist. There was no knowledge about the any training provided to Susato.

Susato moved to Antwerp in 1529 and worked as a calligrapher for the church of Our Lady. Two years later, he was part of the town band. As such, he played a variety of instruments, including trumpet, trombone, crumhorn, transverse flute, and recorder. He remained on Our Lady’s payroll, but as a musician.

In 1543, he founded the first music publishing house using movable music type in the Low Countries. He could be found in Antwerp, "At the Sign of the Crumhorn." Until Susato set up his press in Antwerp, music printing had been done mainly in Italy, France and Germany.

Although he published only two books of Flemish songs, he championed Flemish music and wanted to prove to the world that songs in Flemish were as artistic and enjoyable as anything composed to words in French, Italian, or Latin. The composers who appeared in his publications include a veritable who’s who of composers born and trained in Flanders, such as Josquin, Gombert, Clemens non Papa, and Lassus

Tylman Susato was important as a composer and very important as a music printer. Much about his origins and early years is unknown, there was never a mention of who influenced or teaches susato throughout his professional career.

Susato was not a great composer in the accepted sense of that term, but he does represent one of the few Flemish composers of the period, and as such is an important figure in relating the music of his region. How much was original we are unclear, as he was obviously compiling folk and popular music of the area. He was, nevertheless, an accomplished writer who was to capture, in his songs and instrumental music, the essence of the time. His melodic material is attractive, and is particularly strong in its rhythmic characteristics. Much of his music, and the music he collected, was in dance rhythm, with the general inference that this was music for the ‘street’ rather than for the aristocracy. The result is music of rugged attraction which avoids performing difficulties and allows it to be within the scope of the untrained singers of the era.

Susato ran this business for 18 years, establishing the first important music publishing house in the Low Countries. His publications included both anthologies and books devoted to single composers. One of his projects was a series he called the Musyck boexken, comprising Flemish songs. In the preface to the first one he asked Flemish composers to send him songs "suitable for publication" to show that "our Flemish tongue" was as suitable for music as French, Latin, or Italian. Another of his publications, Souterliedekens, is a group of polyphonic and metrical Dutch psalm settings, intended for the home rather than church.

The most important original music is a set of two books of 50 cantus firmus chansons in "two or three parts," meaning with the bass part optional. This is the largest number of extant cantus firmus chansons by any composer. Susato said in his preface to them that their purpose was to teach and encourage younger people who were not experienced at singing in ensemble. As such, the polyphonic writing is imitative. In addition, Susato also wrote and arranged various dances of the time in relatively simple, more homophonic texture.

As a trumpeter he is also listed as “a town player”, while he created the first music printing company in the Low Countries, and was in this business from 1541. He appears then to have moved this to be combined with a musical instrument business at his home in 1551. During his publishing career he was responsible for 25 books of chansons, 3 books of masses and 19 books of motets. He was also anxious to promote Flemish composers, and eventually published four books devoted to songs by national musicians. His efforts to find more did not succeed, and he was to compose many of his own works based on popular Flemish music of the time.

Susato dedicated his publications to prominent citizens of the town. Sometimes he devoted an entire volume to the works of one composer (for example Manchicourt and Crecquillon). Not surprisingly, he seems to have favored other Flemish composers as subjects for publication. He was also one of the first to publish music of the acclaimed late Renaissance composer Orlande de Lassus.

The Baroque Era

Johann Pachelbel

Johann Pachelbel was born in 1653 in Nuremberg into a middle-class family, The exact date of Johann's birth is unknown, but since he was baptized on 1 September, he may have been born in late August – He died March 3, 1706, in Nürnberg),

German composer known for his works for organ and one of the great organ masters of the generation before Johann Sebastian Bach.

Pachelbel was a German composer, organist, and teacher who brought the south German organ schools to their peak. He composed a large body of sacred and secular music, and his contributions to the development of the chorale prelude and fugue have earned him a place among the most important composers of the middle Baroque era.

Johann Pachelbel died at the age of 52, in early March 1706, and was buried on 9 March; Mattheson cites either 3 March or 7 March 1706 as the death date, yet it is unlikely that the corpse was allowed to linger unburied as long as six days. Contemporary custom was to bury the dead on the third or fourth post-mortem day; so, either 6 or 7 March 1706 is a likelier death date.[24] He is buried in the St. Rochus Cemetery.

During his early youth, Pachelbel received musical training from Heinrich Schwemmer, a musician and music teacher who later became the cantor of St. Sebaldus Church (Sebalduskirche). Some sources indicate that Pachelbel also studied with Georg Caspar Wecker, organist of the same church and an important composer of the Nuremberg school, but this is now considered unlikely.[10] In any case, both Wecker and Schwemmer were trained by Johann Erasmus Kindermann, one of the founders of the Nuremberg musical tradition, who had been at one time a pupil of Johann Staden.

St. Sebaldus Church, Nuremberg, which played an important role in Pachelbel's life, Johann Mattheson, whose Grundlage einer Ehrenpforte (Hamburg, 1740) is one of the most important sources of information about Pachelbel's life, mentions that the young Pachelbel demonstrated exceptional musical and academic abilities. He received his primary education in St. Lorenz Hauptschule and the Auditorio Aegediano in Nuremberg, then on 29 June 1669, he became a student at the University of Altdorf, where he was also appointed organist of St. Lorenz church the same year.

Johann Pachelbel was known for his works for organ and one of the great organ masters of the generation before Johann Sebastian Bach.

Pachelbel also composed secular music. He wrote numerous suites for harpsichord, sonatas for violin, and variations on popular melodies for many different instruments. His most important work is the Hexachordum Apollinis, a collection of six arias with variations for harpsichord or organ.

Johann Pachelbel was influenced by southern German composers, such as Johann Jakob Froberger and Johann Caspar Kerll, Italians such as Girolamo Frescobaldi and Alessandro Poglietti, French composers, and the composers of the Nuremberg tradition.

Pachelbel was also permitted to study music outside the Gymnasium. His teacher was Kaspar (Caspar) Prentz, once a student of Johann Caspar Kerll. Since the latter was greatly influenced by Italian composers such as Giacomo Carissimi, it is likely through Prentz that Pachelbel started developing an interest in contemporary Italian music, and Catholic church music in general.

Pachelbel's music enjoyed enormous popularity during his lifetime; he had many pupils and his music became a model for the composers of south and central Germany. Today, Pachelbel is best known for the Canon in D, as well as the Chaconne in F minor, the Toccata in E minor for organ, and the Hexachordum Apollinis, a set of keyboard variations.

All Pachelbel’s work is in a contrapuntally simple style. His organ compositions show a knowledge of Italian forms derived from Girolamo Frescobaldi through Johann Jakob Froberger. Of special importance are his chorale preludes, which did much to establish the chorale melodies of Protestant northern Germany in the more lyrical musical atmosphere of the Catholic south. His popular Pachelbel’s Canon was written for three violins and continuo and was followed by a gigue in the same key. His son, Wilhelm Hieronymous Pachelbel, was also an organist and composer.

Financial difficulties forced Pachelbel to leave the university after less than a year. In order to complete his studies, he became a scholarship student, in 1670, at the Gymnasium Poeticum at Regensburg. The school authorities were so impressed by Pachelbel's academic qualifications that he was admitted above the school's normal quota.

Pachelbel was best known for his innovative and unique musical style, which is how he influenced so many upcoming composers of that time. He was highly skilled at discovering new ways to embellish the chorale tune to make it sound more alive. His musical style influenced the some of the greatest composers to come after him such as JS Bach and Dietrich Buxtehude.

During his lifetime, Pachelbel was best known as an organ composer. He wrote more than two hundred pieces for the instrument, both liturgical and secular, and explored most of the genres that existed at the time. Pachelbel was also a prolific vocal music composer: around a hundred of such works survive, including some 40 large-scale works. Only a few chamber music pieces by Pachelbel exist, although he might have composed many more, particularly while serving as court musician in Eisenach and Stuttgar.

The Classical Era

Christoph Willibald Gluck

Christoph Willibald Gluck (July 1714 – 15 November 1787) was a composer of Italian and French opera in the early classical period.

Although there is no documentary record with Gluck's birthdate at the time of his birth, he himself gave it as 2 July 1714 on an official document requested by Paris that he signed in 1785 in Vienna in the presence of the French ambassador Emmanuel Marie Louis de Noailles.

Born in the Upper Palatinate and raised in Bohemia,[1] both part of the Holy Roman Empire. Vienna is associated with the beginning of Gluck’s opera reform, which he carried out in collaboration with the librettist R. Calzabigi. The first reformed opera. The reform was completed in Paris, where Gluck moved in 1773. In 1774 in Paris, he staged the opera Iphigénie en Aulide (with a libretto by F. du Roullet, adapted from Racine’s tragedy) and new editions of Orfeo (1774) and Alceste (1776).

Gluck spent his childhood and youth in Bohemia. One of his teachers was the great Czech organist and composer B. Černohorský. Gluck studied voice and several instruments (organ, harpsichord, violin, and cello).

Gluck sang and played violin and cello, and also the organ at Týn Church. Gluck eventually left Prague without taking a degree, and vanishes from the historical record until 1737.

In 1745 Gluck accepted an invitation from Lord Middlesex to become house composer at London's King's Theatre, probably travelling to England via Frankfurt and in the company of the violinist Ferdinand Philipp Joseph von Lobkowitz, the son of Phillip Hyacinth. The timing was poor, as the Jacobite Rebellion had caused much panic in London, and for most of the year, the King's Theatre was closed. Six trio sonatas were the immediate fruits of his time. Gluck's two London operas, (La caduta de' giganti and Artamene) eventually performed in 1746, borrowed much from his earlier works. Gluck performed works by Galuppi and Lampugnani, who both had worked in London. A more long-term benefit was exposure to the music of Handel – whom he later credited as a great influence on his style – and the naturalistic acting style of David Garrick, an English theatrical reformer. On 25 March, shortly after the production of Artamene, Handel and Gluck together gave a concert in the Haymarket Theatre consisting of works by Gluck and an organ concerto by Handel, played by the composer. On 14 April Gluck played on a glassharmonica in Hickford's Rooms, a concert hall in Brewer Street, Soho.[41] Handel's own experience of Gluck pleased that composer less: Charles Burney reports Handel as saying that "he [Gluck] knows no more of contrapunto, as my cook, Waltz".

One of Christoph Gluck’s teachers was the great Czech organist and composer B. Černohorský. Gluck studied voiceand several instruments (organ, harpsichord, violin, and cello)

The strong influence of French opera encouraged Gluck to move to Paris in November 1773. Fusing the traditions of Italian opera and the French (with rich chorus) into a unique synthesis, Gluck wrote eight operas for the Parisian stage. Iphigénie en Tauride (1779) was a great success and is generally acknowledged to be his finest work. Though he was extremely popular and widely credited with bringing about a revolution in French opera, Gluck's mastery of the Parisian operatic scene was never absolute, and after the poor reception of his Echo et Narcisse (1779), he left Paris in disgust and returned to Vienna to live out the remainder of his life.

In 1767, in the preface for Alceste, Gluck theorised on the reform of opera seria which he himself had initiated five years earlier with Orfeo ed Euridice. In doing so, the musician was expressing his desire to draw inspiration from French opera in order to put an end to the inane narratives, the reign of all-powerful performers, and gratuitous vocal virtuosity in scenes lacking any dramatic power. The German musician was assisted in his reform of Italian opera by some exceptional associates (Ranieri Calzabigi his librettist, Gasparo Angiolini his choreographer, Giovanni Maria Ouaglio his set designer and the castrato Gaetano Guadagni).

Christoph Gluck was an opera composer of the early classical period his most famous work was Orfeo ed Euridice. Gluck's radical credentials go back to his youth. He ran away to Prague at about 14, living by his wits, getting musical work where he could.

In 1745 Gluck, by then well known as an operatic composer, was invited to England at the instigation of Lord Middlesex, director of Italian opera at the Haymarket Theatre, London, in order to challenge Handel’s solid hold on London opera goers. The plan at first failed when, because of the political chaos caused by the Stuart rising, all theatres in London were closed before Gluck arrived in England. When the situation became calmer, theatrical activities recommenced with a performance of Gluck’s opera La caduta de’ giganti on Jan. 17, 1746; the libretto, by A.F. Vanneschi, glorified the hero of the day, the Duke of Cumberland, after his victory at Culloden over the forces of Prince Charles Edward, the Stuart claimant to the British throne. This work, as well as Gluck’s second London opera, Artamene, produced on March 14, 1746, consisted largely of music from his own earlier works, lack of time having forced him to this device. Neither opera met with success. On March 25, shortly after the production of Artamene, Handel and Gluck together gave a concert in the Haymarket Theatre consisting of works by Gluck and an organ concerto by Handel, played by the composer. Gluck had won Handel’s interest despite the latter’s later much-quoted criticism of Gluck’s lack of contrapuntal ability (Handel said that Gluck “knows no more counterpoint than my cook”). Gluck himself, according to the Irish singer Michael Kelly, tried to emulate Handel, whom he described as the “divine master of our art.”

Gluck introduced more drama by using simpler recitative and cutting the usually long da capo aria. His later operas have half the length of a typical baroque opera. The strong influence of French opera encouraged Gluck to move to Paris in November 1773.

The Romantic Era

Arthur Sullivan

Arthur Seymour Sullivan (13 May 1842 – 22 November 1900) was an English composer.

Sullivan was born in Lambeth, now part of London. His father was a military bandmaster, and Arthur was proficient with all the instruments in the band by age eight. Following a stay at private school in Bayswater, he was admitted to the choir of the Chapel Royal, attending its school in Cheyne Walk. While there, he began to compose anthems and songs.

At twelve, Arthur Sullivan joined the Chapel Royal as a chorister and received the Mendelssohn scholarship at fourteen, entering the Royal Academy of Music in the same year. After completing his education at the Leipzig Conservatoire at the age of nineteen, he returned to London to begin his career as a church organist and music teacher. In the same year, his graduation piece, ‘The Tempest’, was performed to great acclaim, establishing his reputation as a rising composer. Thereafter, he continued to work independently, earning great fame for his works. At the age of twenty-nine, he first collaborated with W. S. Gilbert, eventually creating fourteen operas with him and establishing a distinctive form of the English operetta. This apart, he also wrote two ballets, a number of choral and orchestral works as well as incidental music to various plays.

Sullivan was a competent player of at least four orchestral instruments (flute, clarinet, trumpet and trombone) and technically a most skillful orchestrator.

In 1886 Sullivan composed his second and last large-scale choral work of the decade. It was a cantata for the Leeds Festival, The Golden Legend, based on Longfellow's poem of the same name. Apart from the comic operas, this proved to be Sullivan's best received full-length work.[117] It was given hundreds of performances during his lifetime, and at one point he declared a moratorium on its presentation, fearing that it would become over-exposed.[118] Only Handel's Messiah was performed more often in Britain in the 1880s and 1890s.[119] It remained in the repertory until about the 1920s, but since then it has seldom been performed;[120] it received its first professional recording in 2001.[119] The musical scholar and conductor David Russell Hulme writes that the work influenced Elgar and Walton

In 1856 the Royal Academy of Music awarded the first Mendelssohn Scholarship to the 14-year-old Sullivan, granting him a year's training at the academy.[9][n 1] His principal teacher there was John Goss, whose own teacher, Thomas Attwood, had been a pupil of Mozart.[14] He studied piano with William Sterndale Bennett (the future head of the academy) and Arthur O'Leary.[15] During this first year at the academy Sullivan continued to sing solos with the Chapel Royal, which provided a small amount of spending money.

Arthur Sullivan’s long association with works for the voice began early. Significant commissions for chorus and orchestra included The Masque at Kenilworth (Birmingham Festival, 1864); an oratorio, The Prodigal Son (Three Choirs Festival, 1869); a dramatic cantata, On Shore and Sea (Opening of the London International Exhibition, 1871); the Festival The Deum (Crystal Palace, 1872); and another oratorio, The Light of the World (Birmingham Festival, 1873). His only song cycle was also written in this period: The Window; or, The Songs of the Wrens (1871), in collaboration with Tennyson.

Sullivan's affinity for theatrical works also began early. During a stint as organist at Covent Garden, he composed his first ballet, L'Île Enchantée (1864), and had his first experience of opera, which was directed there by Sir Michael Costa. In the nineteenth century, plays were often accompanied by live incidental music, and Sullivan composed music for more than half a dozen productions. Early examples included The Merchant of Venice (Prince's Theatre, Manchester, 1871); The Merry Wives of Windsor (Gaiety Theatre, London, 1874); and Henry VIII (Theatre Royal, Manchester, 1877). Hs earlier Tempest incidental music, although composed with the theatre in mind, was originally prepared for the concert hall. He would continue in this genre throughout his life, with incidental music to Macbeth (1888) at the Lyceum Theatre; to Alfred Tennyson's The Foresters (1892) Daly's Theatre in New York; and to J. Comyns Carr's King Arthur (1895), again at the Lyceum.

In 1868, he composed his most famous part song, ‘The Long Day Closes’. He had published six other part songs that very year, but ‘The Long Day Closes’, with its poignant meditation on death, became especially popular during funeral services.

His last major work in the 1860s was an oratorio titled ‘The Prodigal Son’, written on a commission for the Three Choirs Festival. The premier, held on 10 September 1869, was a great success and the work continued to find place in the standard choral repertory until the World War I.

In 1870, Sullivan wrote one of his most enduring works, ‘Overture di Ballo’. Premiered in August 1870 at the Birmingham Triennial Festival, the work was both critically and popularly successful.

In 1871, Sullivan published ‘The Window’, his only song cycle. Two other important works of this year were a dramatic cantata called ‘On Shore and Sea’ and a hymn titled ‘Onward, Christian Soldiers.’

Despite concerns that Sullivan at nearly 12 years of age was too old to give much service as a treble before his voice broke, he was accepted and soon became a soloist and, by 1856, was promoted to "first boy". Even at this age, Sullivan's health was delicate, and he was easily fatigued.

In 1861, Arthur Sullivan returned to London and began his career as the organist at the St. Michael’s Church. Sometime thereafter, Henry F. Chorley, a well-known musical critic, held a private performance of ‘The Tempest’ at his home. It was attended by George Grove, the Secretary to the Crystal Palace.

Although Sullivan was till then an unknown composer and barely twenty years old, Grove was so impressed by the work that he arranged to have it performed at the Crystal Palace. Immediately, Sullivan began revising the work, extending it to twelve movements. Chorley wrote the linking narration.

’The Tempest’ was performed in full at a concert on 5 April 1862 at the Crystal Palace. It was such a huge success that it was repeated in the following week and overnight Sullivan’s reputation as a promising composer was established.

The Early Twentieth Century

Manuel de Falla

Manuel de Falla, (born November 23, 1876, died November 14, 1946, Alta Gracia, Argentina), the most distinguished Spanish composer of the early 20th century. In his music he achieved a fusion of poetry, asceticism, and ardour that represents the spirit of Spain at its purest

The full birth name of this Spanish Maestro was Manuel María de los Dolores Falla y Matheu. He was born in Cadiz on 23 November 1876 to his parents José María Falla y Franco and María Jesús Matheu y Zabal.

studied piano first with his mother, then in 1897 began his training with José Tragó (piano) and Felipe Pedrell (composition)—the leaders of the Spanish national music renewal. His opera La Vida Breve won first prize in a national competition in 1905. From 1907 to the outbreak of World War I he lived in Paris, accompanying, teaching piano, and learning from his Impressionist friends, debussy, Ravel, and Dukas. Once more in Spain, Falla found his stride, turning out a succession of masterful works, such as the ballets El Amor Brujo (containing the popular "Ritual Fire Dance") and El Sombrero de Tres Picos ("The Three-Cornered Hat"); the symphonic "impressions" Noches en los jardines de España ("Nights in the Gardens of Spain")

In the year Falla turned 20 years of age he relocated to the capital city of Spain, Madrid, where he attended the Real Conservatorio de Música y Declamación. At the Conservatorio he studied piano with José Tragó (a colleague of Isaac Albéniz), and composition with the widely esteemed Felipe Pedrell. Falla enjoyed the chamber music that was hosted by Salvador Viniegra, and dedicated his Melodia for cello and piano(1897) to him. It was at this time that he began prefixing his surname with "de", and hereafter was known by this name. Around 1900 he premiered the piano piece Serenata andaluza y Vals-Capricho at the Ateneo de Madrid ("Athenæum of Madrid" - a private cultural institution). His family's precarious financial position at the time necessitated that Falla begin teaching piano lessons.

The composer became interested in native Andalusian music, and was to use many elements such as flamenco's cante jondo in his compositions. Subsequently he began writing in the Spanish opera idiom known as "Zarzuela", and his Los amores de la Inés was premiered on 12 April 1902 at the Teatro Cómico de Madrid. The following year Falla composed and performed his Allegro de concierto, as a competition piece for the Royal Conservatory in Madrid; the first prize was awarded to fellow Spaniard Enrique Granados for his piece of the same title.

Manuel de Falla took piano lessons from his mother and later went to Madrid to continue the piano and to study composition with Felipe Pedrell, who inspired him with his own enthusiasm for 16th-century Spanish church music, folk music, and native opera, or zarzuela. In 1905 Falla won two prizes, one for piano playing and the other for a national opera, La vida breve (first performed in Nice, France, 1913).

Falla's first major work was a one-act opera La vida breve ("Life is Short", or "The Brief Life"). The opera was written in 1905 in collaboration with the librettist Carlos Fernández Shaw, and with it, in a competition hosted by the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando, he won first prize. However, nobody in Spain was interested in staging the opera, and so the composer sought better prospects in neighboring France, where, in 1913 the opera was finally premiered at the Casino Municipal in Nice.

From 45 to 63 years of age Falla resided in Granada, Spain. Here, along with the poet Federico García Lorca, he organized the Concurso de Cante Jondo (1922) in an attempt to conserve the ancient art of Andalusian song and flamenco. Two important works composed in the city included the puppet opera El retablo de maese Pedro (Master Peter's Puppet Show - an adaptation of various episodes from Cervantes’s Don Quixote, 1923); and a harpsichord concerto, the first written for the instrument in the 20th century. Both works were written with the acclaimed harpsichordist Wanda Landowska in mind, and Falla digressed from his typical Spanish folk influences for these works, preferring to explore elements of Stravinskian neoclassicism.

In Madrid Falla composed several of his best-known pieces, including: The nocturne for piano and orchestra Noches en los jardines de España (1916) The ballet El amor brujo (1915) which includes the much excerpted and arranged Danza ritual del fueg

The self-exiled composer spent some time teaching in Argentina, where amongst his notable pupils was the fellow country woman Rosa García Ascot. His health began to decline and he retired to a villa in the mountains where he was tended by his sister María del Carmen de Falla.

Manuel de Falla also began work on a large-scale orchestral cantata while living in Granada. Atlántida (Atlantis) is a canata based on L'Atlàntida written by Jacint Verdaguer: A mythological story in which the submersion of Atlantis created the Atlantic Ocean, thus separating Spain from Latin America; the story then goes on to claim that the later discovery of America was a reunification of the two which had always belonged together. The composer regarded this as his most important musical work, however posterity has not agreed with his opinion and performances of Atlántida are very rare.

American Innovations in the Arts

Danny Elfman

Daniel Robert Elfman (born May 29, 1953) is an American composer, singer, songwriter, record producer and actor. He first became well known as the singer-songwriter for the new wave band Oingo Boingo in the early 1980s, and has since garnered international recognition for composing over 100 feature film scores, as well as compositions for television, stage productions, and the concert hall. He is still active at the age of 67.

Elfman was born in Los Angeles, California, to a Jewish family of Polish-Jewish and Russian-Jewish descent. He is the son of Blossom Elfman (née Bernstein), a writer and teacher, and Milton Elfman, a teacher who was in the Air Force, and the brother of Richard Elfman.

As a composer with no classical training, Danny offers a different perspective on getting into the business. He encourages you to find what makes you unique, pursue what you can do best, and promote that aspect of yourself to be heard.

Throughout high school, Elfman experimented with several instruments including violin, trombone, mallet instruments, and guitar (deciding much later that not one of them was of any use to him as a composer). He ended up settling on violin and guitar, and after high school, toured the world performing the violin as a street musician.

At the age of eleven, Danny Elfman became enamored by film music and often frequented the local theater just to hear the music in the films. His “heroes” included film composers Bernard Herman, Nino Rota, Dimitri Tiomkin, Max Steiner, Franz Waxman, and Erich Korngold. Other influences include Prokofiev, Stravinsky, Orff, Bartok, Duke Ellington, Harry Partch, Philip Glass, and Lou Harrison. Elfman also attributes his diverse style of writing to other non-classical composers and groups such as old country artists, Hank Williams, Georgy Jones, and Patsy Cline, as well as pre-1935 to the 1940s jazz, current and contemporary music, Latin music, African music, and Cuban music.

Once he moved back to California, he collaborated with his older brother, Richard Elfman, performing musical theater on the streets. This group, then known as the Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo, was an avant-garde, comic troupe that later evolved into the popular music group Oingo Boingo when the Mystic Knights dissolved in 1978. While with this group, Elfman claims he began to develop the skills he would utilize later as a film composer. Elfman would often transcribe (but never play) solos and songs by composers and performers such as Duke Ellington and Stefan Grapelli so that the group could use them. Essentially, he learned how to read music by writing it.

Elfman counts Herrmann as his biggest influence, and has said hearing Herrmann's score to The Day the Earth Stood Still when he was a child was the first time he recognized film music as a cinematic artform and realized the powerful contribution a composer makes to the movies.[81] Pastiche of Herrmann's music can be heard in Elfman's Pee-Wee's Big Adventure, especially the cues "Stolen Bike" and "Clown Attack", which directly reference Herrmann's music from Psycho and 7th Voyage of Sinbad respectively. His score to Batman makes more subtle nods to Herrmann's Journey to the Center of the Earth and Vertigo, and more integral homage can be heard in later scores for Mars Attacks! and Hitchcock, as well as the "Blue Strings" movement of his first concert work Serenada Schizophrana.

Elfman first became well known as the singer-songwriter for the new wave band Oingo Boingo in the early 1980s, and has since garnered international recognition for composing over 100 feature film scores, as well as compositions for television, stage productions, and the concert hall

Over the last twenty years, Danny Elfman has been recognized as a prolific composer across a variety of genres, namely film scoring and popular music. He is constantly surprising his audience with his diversity as a composer, and has created a strong reputation as a skilled composer despite animosity from others in the industry early in his career. Despite the fact he was initially labeled as a dark composer, he has eluded being put in a stylistic box by avoiding composing in any one style. According to Elfman, he does not feel it is necessary to have a trademark sound and prefers to be the composer that “you never know what he’s going to do next.” With over two decades of experience under his belt, Danny Elfman will continue to develop his reputation as an in-demand and well-respected film composer.

Music and film are two of the most complex forms of art that exist. Together, they possess the ability to create a fantastically realistic experience. When done exceptionally well, a cinematic moment like an onscreen kiss or the introduction of two strangers can come to life in an enchanting and unique way.

Among the brilliant artists who compose and curate soundtracks for film is the inimitable Danny Elfman

Some of his famous work includes: Spiderman,” “Good Will Hunting” and “Dolores Claiborne.” He also created the giddy theme songs for famous television shows such as “The Simpsons” and “Desperate Housewives.”

Elfman had never been particularly comfortable with live performance of his orchestral works. “He records it, supervises it, produces it, and then moves on to something else.

A native of Los Angeles, Elfman grew up loving film music. He travelled the world as a young man, absorbing its musical diversity. He helped found the band Oingo Boingo, and came to the attention of a young Tim Burton, who asked him to write the score for Pee-wee’s Big Adventure. 34 years later, the two have forged one of the most fruitful composer-director collaborations in film history. In addition to his film work, Elfman wrote the iconic theme music for the television series The Simpsons and Desperate Housewives.

Twentieth Century Internationalism

Tania Leon

Tania Leon, born on May 14, 1943, is a Cuban conductor and composer. She has become one of the major figures in American musical life.

Tania was born in Havana Cuba; she is the daughter of Oscar León Mederos and Dora Ferran.

In 1967, she moved to New York to take conducting lessons with Léonard Bernstein and Seiji Ozawa, while continuing her piano studies. In 1969, she was one of the co-founders and Musical Director of the Dance Theater of Harlem until 1980 and from 1993 to 1997, she became Kurt Masur's contemporary music advisor at the New York Philharmonic.

She studied piano, violin and music theory in Havana, obtaining multiple bachelor's degrees and a master's degree in music from the Carlos Alfredo Peyrellado Conservatory.

From 1964 to 1967 León performed as a piano soloist in her native country and acted as music director for a television station in Havana. León immigrated to New York City in 1967. Two years later, she accidentally met Arthur Mitchell, who asked her to accompany on piano his new dance troupe—Dance Theater of Harlem

A Cuban émigré, León has played an active role to introduce Latin American music works to American audiences. Her composition style, which is influenced by gospel and jazz, has been called utterly distinctive. She was a founding member of the Dance Theatre of Harlem in 1969 and served as its first musical director.

Stravinsky was one of Tania Leon foremost influences, she has also studied the works of Ligeti, Janáček, and numerous other composers. Her compositional style is quite original, but does meld aspects of Stravinsky’s techniques with a distinctly Ivesian sound. The former composer’s influence is reflected in León’s rhythmic vitality and complexity, use of rhythm as a generator of form, colorful orchestration, and use of the octatonic collection and its subsets, specifically the major-minor chord. Both composers began their careers with music written to accompany dance, and these experiences informed later compositions. In addition, both remained connected to music of their heritage. Similarities with Ives include her use of dissonant harmonies and ambiguous harmonic movement within an essentially tonal framework, polyphonic textures distinguished by rhythm, pitch content and tonality, and integration of jazz into works otherwise within the classical tradition.

A longtime resident of New York, Tania Leon has played important roles at its institutions, such as the Dance Theater of Harlem, Brooklyn Philharmonic, American Composers Orchestra and its Sonidos de las Americas festivals, and the New York Philharmonic, which she served as New Music Advisor.

Ms. León is the founder and artistic director of Composers Now, a nonprofit in New York City that celebrates the diversity of composers in the city and honors their contributions to the cultural fabric of society. A professor at Brooklyn College since 1985 and at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY), she was named Distinguished Professor Emeritus of CUNY in 2006.

Her recent commissions include works for the Los Angeles Philharmonic, International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), and Ursula Oppens with the Cassatt Quartet. Ms. León is at work on her second opera, The Little Rock Nine, to a libretto by Thulani Davis, with Henry Louis Gates, Jr., serving as historical consultant; the opera was commissioned by the University of Central Arkansas College of Fine Arts and Communication. Her first opera, Scourge of Hyacinths, based on a play by Wole Soyinka with staging and design by Robert Wilson, received more than 20 performances in France, Switzerland, and Mexico.

Tania León has received Grammy and Latin Grammy nominations for Best Contemporary Classical Composition. She has appeared as guest conductor throughout the US and on all continents of the world. Her honors include induction into the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; recognition from the Fromm, Koussevitzky, and Guggenheim foundations; the ASCAP Victor Herbert Award; and a 2018 United States Artists Fellowship.

Tania León is highly regarded as a composer and conductor and recognized for her accomplishments as an educator and advisor to arts organizations. She has been profiled on ABC, CBS, CNN, PBS, Univision, Telemundo, and independent films.

Her ballet compositions for that company include Haiku (1973), Dougla (with Geoffrey Holder, 1974) and Belé (with Geoffrey Holder; 1981).

Ms. León’s trajectory in America, from displaced pianist-in-training to compositional force, began with upheaval. Not long after she arrived, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Senator Robert F. Kennedy were assassinated; Ms. León barely spoke English, but found herself shouting slogans at antiwar protests. She was overwhelmed with stress, and her hair began to fall out.

But propelled by talent, tenacity and a bit of luck, she began to reverse her fortunes. She played her way into a scholarship at the New York College of Music. Substituting for a friend as an accompanist to dance classes, she was spotted by the famed New York City Ballet dancer Arthur Mitchell. He was starting a new venture, the Dance Theater of Harlem, and recruited Ms. León as music director.

A founding member of the Dance Theatre of Harlem, León instituted the Brooklyn Philharmonic Community Concert Series, co-founded the Sonidos de las Americas festivals with the American Composers Orchestra, and is the founder of Composers Now festival in New York City. She also served as Latin American Advisor to the American Composers Orchestra and New Music Advisor to the New York Philharmonic.

León has also received Honorary Doctorate Degrees from Colgate University, Oberlin, and SUNY Purchase College, and has served as U.S. Artistic Ambassador of American Culture in Madrid, Spain. A Professor at Brooklyn College since 1985 and at the Graduate Center of CUNY, she was named Distinguished Professor of the City University of New York in 2006. In 2010 she was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Her honors include the New York Governor’s Lifetime Achievement Award, Symphony Space’s Access to the Arts, the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award, and the Fromm, Koussevitzky, and Guggenheim Fellowships. In 2012 she received both a Grammy nomination (for “Best Contemporary Classical Composition”) and a Latin Grammy nomination (for “Best Classical Contemporary Composition”) and in 2013 she was the recipient of the prestigious 2013 ASCAP Victor Herbert Award.