Elmer Bernstein… “THIS IS YOUR LIFE”
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Some You Win
There was a time, between 1955 and 1959, when an Elmer Bernstein score was the last word. On screen, wicked women sashayed in tight skirts, zoot-suited men thumped each other’s inverted pyramid torsos, powder-blue Fords with fanciful tailfins eased down the block – and Bernstein put them all to unapologetically American music. He first really […]
Heartfelt Emotions Inspire Heavenly Music
Story Guides Elmer Bernstein when he Scores Films
Elmer Bernstein never watched Douglas Sirk’s movies in the 1950s. To him, such “women’s weepies” were of little interest. Besides, he was too busy writing the scores to edgier, more provocative films such as “The Sweet Smell of Success” and “The Man With the Golden Arm.” A half-century later, Hollywood movies have not only lost […]
Scoring High
Movie composer Elmer Bernstein is Mr. Versatility
No routines for composer Elmer Bernstein, thank you. “I rarely do anything at the same time each day,” he says, “simply because anything you do routinely cannot possibly be fresh. I think having a life with change in it keeps you young.” Change has certainly worked for Bernstein, 80, who has been at the top […]
Composer Elmer Bernstein to Attend “How Now, Dow Jones” at the York
Elmer Bernstein, whose credits as a film composer range from Some Came Running to Serpico to The Blues Brothers to Far From Heaven, will attend the York Theatre Company’s “Musicals in Mufti” production of Bernstein’s flop 1967 Broadway musical How Now, Dow Jones this weekend, according to the York’s press representative. Bernstein will see the […]
DeMille to Scorsese, Elmer Bernstein Has Scored Them All
Woodstock, New York. When Elmer Bernstein’s agent called him about writing the score for Todd Haynes’s “Far From Heaven,” he admitted that there was a problem: the film had already been given a temporary score, which Mr. Bernstein would have to listen to as he watched. “I won’t look at a film with a temporary score,” […]
Melody Maker
Rough Cut Hobnobs With a Movie Maestro
Think Hollywood. Think glamour. Think Los Angeles. Sun-bleached skies, silicon-pumped hotties and stars on every street corner. Now scrap that. Think Warwick. Sleepy. English. Provincial. For it is here, in a 14th-century cottage decorated like your gran’s, that Rough Cut meets a movie legend. The greatest living film composer, a contender for the all-time title: Elmer Bernstein. […]
Music That Changed Me: Elmer Bernstein
As a four-year-old, I’m told, I used to climb up on to a chair and play records on our wind-up machine. My father collected opera and jazz recordings. My earliest musical memories are a mixture of Enrico Caruso, Louis Armstrong and a very popular song, La Paloma, which apparently I used to sing around the house. […]
Bernstein’s Guitar Concerto Presented at the Hollywood Bowl
Works by Elmer Bernstein and Alex North hold their own with "Scheherazade" in the "Hollywood Goes Orchestral" program
Attaching a “Hollywood Goes Orchestral” tag to Tuesday’s concert by the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra might be accurate, but it was also misleading. In a program in which Elmer Bernstein’s engaging Concerto for Guitar and Orchestra–written for the evening’s featured soloist, Christopher Parkening–had its Los Angeles premiere, and a suite from Alex North’s “Cleopatra” score had […]
Baby, the Jazz Must Play Elmer Bernstein’s Cool Jazz, Part 2: The ’60s
Between 1960-61, Elmer Bernstein scored From the Terrace, wrote the Emmy Award-winning music for the documentary Making of the President: 1960, the westerns The Magnificent Seven and The Comancheros, and penned Tennessee Williams’ emotional ringer Summer and Smoke. (Happily, each of these scores has been commercially released at one time or another, although the Making […]
Celestial Refrains
“An interviewer once asked me to discuss my collaboration with Elmer Bernstein, and precisely why I chose to work with him. My first thought was: how could I not work with Elmer, when I had the chance? Simply put, he’s the best there is – the very best.” Martin Scorsese, director The maestro strides quickly […]
Maestro Bernstein to Return to Scotland for Special Birthday Honor
ELMER BERNSTEIN PROGRAM Glasgow — May 10, 2002 Hallelujah Trail Overture 5:00 Bernstein Suites from Films Summer and Smoke 12:00 Bernstein The Grifters 8:00 Bernstein Kings of the Sun 6:00 Bernstein The Great Escape 10:00 Bernstein —Intermission— Waltzes from Films 14:00 Bernstein The Age of Innocence Incredible Sarah Summer and Smoke From the Terrace Thoroughly […]
Maestro Bernstein to Return to Scotland for Special Birthday Honor
Article: Man with the Golden Touch
Michael Tumelty | The Glasgow Herald Elmer Bernstein, composer of some of the greatest epic film scores, conducts his own 80th birthday concert in Glasgow… Almost exactly 50 years ago Elmer Bernstein was unemployable; frozen out of Hollywood for allegedly un-American activities. Today, a month after his 80th birthday, he is being feted as one […]
Man with the Golden Touch
Elmer Bernstein, composer of some of the greatest epic film scores, conducts his own 80th birthday concert in Glasgow...
Almost exactly 50 years ago Elmer Bernstein was unemployable; frozen out of Hollywood for allegedly un-American activities. Today, a month after his 80th birthday, he is being feted as one of the great movie composers, with over 150 soundtracks to his name, including an elite handful of iconic film scores – “The Magnificent Seven” and […]
80th Birthday Tribute to Elmer Bernstein
Born: New York, New York, 4 April 1922 This year he has already received the first World Soundtrack Lifetime Achievement Award It’s my greatest pleasure to recognize one of the most respected film composers working today: Elmer Bernstein. I’ve been a fan of his music ever since the 1950’s. I’d like to tell a little […]