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Composer's religion


Morlock

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This is not discussing religion, so it does not clash with the rules.

I was just wondering out of curiosity (or pack pride) about what religion all these movie composers I love are.

Being Jewish, it does make me feel a bit of that pack pride thing knowing that some of the biggest names in movie scoring, such as A. Newman, Waxman, Bachrach, Tiomkin, E. Bernstein, and Korngold and I've heard also Rozsa, Herrman and Steiner (Though unconfirmed) are jewish.

Most of the others are just going by name- Goldsmith, Goldenthal, Elfman, Newman, Menken could all be jewish, where as Horner, North, Kamen, Barry, Arnold, Conti, Burwell, Zimmer, Shore are most probably Christian.

The only one I know for a fact is not Judao-Christian is Glass, who is famously buddhist.

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Well, its unclear with what religion Williams was raised or which one is prominent in his background. But it doesn't really matter all that much, since he has stated many times that he "isn't particularly religious."

Ted

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I think Glass is the only composer who has been vocal about his faith.

Although I wonder if being Jewish had something to do with Bernstein choosing to score "The Ten Commandments."

And more recently, what does that say about Hans Zimmer and "The Prince of Egypt." I am sure the songwriter, Stephen Schwartz, is Jewish.

Jeff -- afraid that this is going to get moved to "Other Topics"

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I think Glass is the only composer who has been vocal about his faith.

First of all, I assume you mean of recent times (or film composer maybe?). And even so, that statement is probably very far off (unless you mean film composer).

Reich is a great example of a composer who is vocal about his faith, which by the way, is Jewish. He used Jewish cantillation as a compositional basis for some of his works, including the Octet, which I like very much!

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What about Goldsmith and his work with Christius (Sp?) Apollo? Can that be considered a Jewish thing, or is it very specifically Christian? I don't know much about the piece. I know that The Omen is very Christian (sort of), but that was a score. He just relied heavily on the Christian music of old.

~Conor

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I copied this list of jewish film composers when this topic came up in FSM.

Goldsmith

Herrmann

North (A russian by background, born in USA)

Bernstein

N. Riddle

Menken

Previn

D. Shire

J. Mandel

Kamen

M. Gore

M. Gould

Hamlisch

V. Young

Bacharach

Tiomkin (Born in russia)

Friedhofer

G. Fried

Fielding

Rosenthal

Rosenman

Horner

Shore

Goldenthal

Newman (Thomas and David are only half )

Steiner (born in Austria)

Korngold (born in Austria)

Rabin

Elfman

Glass

Glasser

Salter

Rosza (only found out late in life, is christian born in Hungary)

Well I can't be sure about all these on the list but I can tell you I know

that Goldsmith, Herrmann and Korngold are.

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Conor,

It just goes to show that I have no clue how to tell.  

that sentence frightens me a bit. :|:)

should a person's religion be stamped on their face?

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No, and that's exactly it. It isn't. It shouldn't, but it means that you just don't know. Don't get me wrong, I don't try to avoid people who are certain religions, because I don't honestly care what religion they belong to. I'm merely saying that it isn't something that is easy to recognize, like you said.

~Conor

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:):):)

Wow' date=' some of those names were obvious- but HORNER? SHORE? RABIN? NORTH? KAMEN? [/quote']

I know. :) I sorta doubt the list. Butl you gotta admit North might not have the name but he does have the nose. :|

Although I was hoping to find a certain Williams

LOL Not me. ;)

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Well, does that mean they see themselves as being of Jewish faith, or just that they are Jewish by descent?

I didn't want to type that much because I was on a laptop, and I don't likt laptops.  I can't use them well.

You get used to it. When I got my laptop, I thought, I'll always be using it with an external keyboard. But I've been using it as my main computer for over a year now, and at the moment I can't type as well on any other keyboard than on the built-in one. :)

Marian - who likes his Dell.

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does that mean you are taking part of maine's lovely laptop program?

(I can't remember how old you are, but part of me thinks this is your own laptop) :)

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Well, does that mean they see themselves as being of Jewish faith, or just that they are Jewish by descent?

Probably a little of both.

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does that mean you are taking part of maine's lovely laptop program?

(I can't remember how old you are, but part of me thinks this is your own laptop) :mrgreen:

(Not sure if you were really referring to me?) I'm 24, and this is my own laptop. But Maine is far too far away from me, even if I could apply (or in fact had heard about this before), shipping costs would probably as high as the price for another laptop. :P

Marian - deep in the heart of Europe. :|

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He bears some resemblance to Chris Lee in AOTC (only without the hair and with glasses). So maybe he is Sith Lord Darth Tyrannus in disguise?

:)

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