Musicians - Michel Legrand

Home > Listing Index > Musicians > Michel Legrand

	Musicians - Michel Legrand

Michel Legrand (born February 24, 1932 in Paris) is a French musical composer, arranger, conductor and pianist.

He has composed over 200 film and television scores, several musicals, and made well over a hundred albums. He has won three Oscars (out of 13 nominations), five Grammys, and has been nominated for an Emmy. He was 22 when his very first album, I Love Paris, became one of the best-selling instrumental albums ever released. He is a virtuoso jazz and classical pianist, and an accomplished arranger and conductor who performs with orchestras all over the world.

In the early 1950s, Legrand was one of the first Europeans to work with legendary jazz innovators Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Stan Getz and Bill Evans. At that time they were at the height of their popularity, and to a European musician working with them seemed unattainable. But Legrand's talent and charm won over these great musicians, who made the records with him and left the memories to their descendants.

During various periods of creative work, Legrand became a conductor of different orchestras in St. Petersburg, Vancouver, Montreal, Atlanta and Denver. Many world stars (jazz, variety and even classical) recorded more than 100 albums with him. More than any other European songwriter, Legrand knew how to infiltrate into the repertoire of top singers such as Frank Sinatra, Sarah Vaughan, Jack Jones, Ella Fitzgerald, Perry Como, Lena Horne, Johnny Mathis, Dame Kiri te Kanawa, James Ingram, and most of all Barbra Streisand.

Cinematic scores

Legrand is known principally as a composer of wonderful cinema music. After his songs appeared in Jacques Demy's films The Umbrellas of Cherbourg and The Young Girls of Rochefort, Legrand became famous. These were sung-through musicals where all the dialogue was set to music, a revolutionary concept. A new genre had been created where there could be no words without music.

Hollywood soon became interested in Legrand, bombarding him with orders to compose music for one film or to another. This was significant in an era where Americans were usually unwilling to collaborate with foreign musicians and actors; for many Europeans, the doors of Hollywood stayed closed. Relatively few received the chance to work there, and Legrand was lucky to be among them. Having begun to collaborate with Hollywood, Legrand had to stay for a long time at this wonderful place which was a dream for everybody who was connected with cinema. These days he divides his time between America and France at once, composing film scores (about 200 to date) for directors Jean-Luc Godard, Richard Brooks, Claude Lelouch, Clint Eastwood and many others.

Awards

Rarely has a musician received as many awards as Michel Legrand. He has received 3 Oscars, 5 Grammys and numerous other awards and nominations. The following are some of the awards and nominations with which Legrand's works have been honored:

Academy Award nominations

Music score, substantially original: The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1965)
Original score for a motion picture, not a musical: The Thomas Crown Affair (1968)
Score of a musical picture, original or adaptation: The Young Girls of Rochefort (1968)
Original dramatic score: Summer of '42 (1971) (won)
Original song score or adaptation score: Yentl (1983)
Original song:
* "I Will Wait for You" from The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1965)
* "The Windmills of Your Mind" (won) from The Thomas Crown Affair (1968)
* "What are You Doing the Rest of Your Life?" from The Happy Ending (1969)
* "Pieces of Dreams" from Pieces of Dreams (1970)
* "How do You Keep the Music Playing?" from Best Friends (1982)
* "Papa, Can You Hear Me?" (won) and "The Way He Makes Me Feel" both from Yentl (1983)

Golden Globe nominations

Original Score:
* The Thomas Crown Affair (1968)
* The Happy Ending (1969)
* Wuthering Heights (1970)
* Le Mans (1971)
* Summer of '42 (1971)
* Lady Sings the Blues (1972)
* Breezy (1973)
* Yentl (1983)
Original Song:
* "The Windmills of Your Mind" from The Thomas Crown Affair (1968) (won)
* "What are You Doing the Rest of Your Life?" from The Happy Ending (1969)
* "Pieces of Dreams" from Pieces of Dreams (1970)
* "Breezy's Song" from Breezy (1973)
* "Yesterday's Dreams" from Falling in love again (1980)
* "The Way He Makes Me Feel" from Yentl (1983)

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Michel Legrand ]

This page is based on the copyrighted Wikipedia article Michel Legrand; it is used under the GNU Free Documentation License. You may redistribute it, verbatim or modified, providing that you comply with the terms of the GFDL.

Searches on eBay