Sunday, March 29, 2009

RIP Maurice Jarre

Three time Oscar winning composer Maurice Jarre died yesterday at age 84. He is probably best known for his scores for Lawrence Of Arabia & Doctor Zhivago. He was born Sept. 13, 1924 in Lyon, France. After studying engineering at Sorbonne, he decided to study music composition at Conservatoire de Paris. His first score was for the 1951 short film Hotel des Invalides. He continued to score short films in the 50s. His score for the acclaimed 1962 film Sundays and Cybele got the attention of producer Sam Spiegel and he was asked to score the 1962 David Lean classic Lawrence Of Arabia. Jarre won an Academy Award and he never looked back. Obviously he became a Lean favourite because his score for the 1966 film Doctor Zhivago not only won an Oscar but topped the album charts. He also scored Lean's Ryan's Daughter and won a third Oscar for the 1984 film A Passage To India. He was also Oscar nominated for Witness, Gorillas In The Mist & Ghost. Jarre is best known for his orchestral scores but he started to favour electronics in the 80s. He started to slow down when he turned 70 in 1994 but he worked occasionally until he retired in 2001. His final score was for the 2001 Jon Avnet TV movie Uprising. His eldest son Jean-Michele Jarre is also a composer specializing in electronic music and his youngest son Kevin Jarre is the screenwriter of the films Tombstone & Glory. Here's Maurice Jarre conducting the Royal Philharmonic performance of the theme from Lawrence Of Arabia. RIP Maurice Jarre.

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