Robert russell bennett biography definition

Happy Birthday. Dream With Music. Something for the Boys. The Show is On. Red, Hot and Blue! Revenge With Music. All the King's Horses. Of Thee I Sing. Face the Music. The Laugh Parade. The Cat and the Fiddle. Singin' the Blues. America's Sweetheart.

Robert russell bennett biography definition: Robert Russell Bennett was an American

Girl Crazy. Heads Up. Criss Cross. Song of the Flame. The City Chap. Lady, Be Good. The Magnolia Lady. Sitting Pretty. Stepping Stones. Sign Up. Sign In. Robert Russell Bennett Biography. This Biography consists of approximately 4 pages of information about the life of Robert Russell Bennett. Get Robert Russell Bennett from Amazon.

His first serious musical employment was with the music publishing house of George Schirmer, Inc. When the United States entered World War IBennett was able to enlist in the army infantry despite some lingering disabilities from polio. Assigned to a headquarters unit back in Kansas City because of a crippled foot, Bennett organized and conducted army bands and scored dance arrangements.

After the armistice, Bennett returned to New York where, on 26 Decemberhe married Louise Merrill, daughter of the headmistress at a finishing school where he had given music lessons. They had one daughter, Beatrice Jean. Bennett applied for a position as orchestrator at T. Harms and Company, at that time the top music publisher in Tin Pan Alleythe center of Manhattan's music industry.

The interview won him a chance to audition; he was instructed to orchestrate a Cole Porter tune, "An Old Fashioned Garden," which became the biggest hit ofand Bennett was hired. Soon he was orchestrating entire productions. It has been said that Bennett is the reason why musical arrangers get their names on theater programs today. He even re-orchestrated Georges Bizet 's opera Carmen for the all-black production, Carmen Jones Perhaps his best-known work was with Richard Rodgers, for whom he orchestrated Oklahoma!

The best-known works of the latter part of his career are his orchestrations for Fritz Loewe's My Fair Lady and Camelot For both of these shows, Bennett collaborated with Philip J. Bennett's astonishingly rapid method of orchestration was legendary. Watching a number two or three times in rehearsal, he was able to score it from memory, often turning out eighty pages of orchestrations a day.

Thus, he occasionally had more than twenty shows running at the same time and almost never fewer than four or five per season. Inafter successfully orchestrating more than sixty musicals, Bennett threw over this lucrative career to go to Paris to study classical composition with Nadia Boulanger. In and he won Guggenheim Fellowships enabling him to continue these studies.

During this period he composed two symphonies, a ballet, and a oneact opera. The following year he collaborated with Robert A. Ironically, the RCA award led to many commissions as an arranger; so many, in fact, that his work as a composer languished. However, in the late s Bennett provided robert russell bennett biography definition music as well as orchestrations for a number of Hollywood productions, including Show BoatThe Hunchback of Notre Dameand Rebecca In Bennett was commissioned by the Saturday Evening Post to write a symphony on The Four Freedomsbased on the famous Norman Rockwell painting done for that magazine.

Eugene Ormandyconductor of the Philadelphia Orchestraplayed it many times, as did other orchestras throughout the country during World War II. The new medium of television gave additional scope to Bennett's abilities. Recordings of this score continued to sell well for many years. During the s Bennett again worked periodically in Hollywood.

For one of his orchestrations, Oklahoma!

Robert russell bennett biography definition: Robert Russell Bennett was

Tall, slender, and distinguished, Bennett was sometimes likened to the film star Ronald Coleman. His hobbies were tennis, baseball, and pool, and every morning he studied the racing form to place bets. He died in New York City at the age of eighty-seven. Among his published orchestra medleys for Broadway shows including some for which others had done the original pit orchestrations are those for Oklahoma!

Robert russell bennett biography definition: Robert Russell Bennett (June 15,

The minute Porgy and Bess: Concert Version for soprano and baritone soloists, chorus and orchestra was prepared in It is based very closely on Gershwin's original instrumental and vocal scoring, the principal recasting being the use of standard concert-orchestra instrumentation, and eliminating the clarinet-saxophone doubling specified in Gershwin's orchestration.

Contents move to sidebar hide. Article Talk. Read Edit View history. Tools Tools. Download as PDF Printable version. In other projects. Wikimedia Commons Wikidata item. Robert Russell Bennett. Musical artist. Life and career [ edit ]. This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources in this section.

Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Early life [ edit ]. Early career [ edit ]. Broadway arranger [ edit ]. Other commissions [ edit ]. Musical profile [ edit ]. Later years and legacy [ edit ]. Death [ edit ]. This section does not cite any sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. February Learn how and when to remove this message.

List of works incomplete [ edit ]. Books [ edit ]. Original compositions selected [ edit ]. Orchestra [ edit ]. Stage works [ edit ]. Incidental music [ edit ].