michael kamen

Background information Born April 15, 1948(1948-04-15)

New York City, New York,

United States Died 18 November 2003 (aged 55)

London, England,

United Kingdom Genre(s) Film score Occupation(s) Composer Instrument(s) Oboe

Michael Kamen (April 15, 1948 – November 18, 2003) was an American composer (especially of film scores), orchestral arranger, orchestral conductor, song writer, and session musician. Contents [hide] 1 Background 2 Early work 3 Career in popular music 4 Other works 5 Later years 6 References 7 External links //

Background

Kamen was born in New York City, USA and studied at the New York High School of Music & Art in New York, then at Juilliard's School for Music Dance and Drama in New York. While studying the oboe, he formed a rock classical fusion band called New York Rock & Roll Ensemble, which was on the first of Leonard Bernstein's Young People's Concerts with the New York Philharmonic.

Early work

Kamen's early work centered on ballets, thirteen in all, then expanding into Hollywood by writing the score for The Next Man in 1976, then into pop and rock arranging, collaborating with Pink Floyd on their album, The Wall. One of his songs, "Sing Lady Sing", was renamed "Them Changes" and parlayed into a hit by Buddy Miles.

Career in popular music

Kamen became a highly-sought arranger in the realms of pop and rock music. In Great Britain he was among a small, illustrious group of arrangers whose names constantly appeared on popular releases by major artists.[citation needed] His contemporaries in this field included Academy Award winner Anne Dudley, Richard Niles, and Nick Ingman. His successes include his work with Pink Floyd, David Gilmour and Roger Waters[1] (he is one of the few people to have been invited to work with both former Pink Floyd members, after their acrimonious split), as well as Queen, Eric Clapton, Roger Daltrey, Aerosmith, Tom Petty, David Bowie, Eurythmics, Queensrÿche, Rush, Metallica, Herbie Hancock, The Cranberries, Bryan Adams, Jim Croce, Sting, and Kate Bush. For Bush, Kamen delivered an orchestral backing for "Moments of Pleasure" from The Red Shoes album, substantially building upon a simple piano theme Bush had composed. In this instance, and many others, he conducted the orchestra personally for the recording. In 1984 Kamen had similarly heightened the impact of a pop recording for the Eurythmics "Here Comes the Rain Again", that score relying as much on his compositional skills as his arranging talents. Five years later, he did the music for For Queen and Country.

In 1990 Kamen joined many other guests for Roger Waters' massive performance of The Wall in Berlin and headed the National Philharmonic Orchestra during the 24 Nights sessions with