Robert Hood Bowers (24 May 1877 - 29 December 1941) was an American composer, conductor and musical director of operettas and stage musicals, and a conductor and musical director for radio. He composed the musical scores for some of the most popular silent movies, including Aloma of the South Seas and A Daughter of the Gods .
Born and raised in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, Robert Hood Bowers was the eldest son of Ellen Graham Heyser and Oliver C. Bowers (a district attorney of Franklin County, and nominee for the Democratic Party for Pennsylvania's 17th congressional district for the 1904 elections). When Bowers was 14, he went to the Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, graduating in 1896. He started working as head of the Musical Department of Cheltenham Military Academy. At the same time, he continued his musical studies first with Constantin von Sternberg and later with Frederick Grant Gleason at the Conservatory of Chicago, [1] where he won the gold medal in 1902. [2] He married Virginia Belving on September 16, 1905. [3] Their only son was also called Robert Hood Bowers (born in 1906, he became a Professor of English at the University of Florida. [4] )
Working as a conductor for Victor Herbert for five years, [5] and as a conductor at the radio stations WMCA, WEAF and WOR, as well as for the Columbia Phonograph Company, Robert Hood Bowers composed songs, school music, operettas and musicals. He also composed dances in an 'oriental' style for modern dance pioneer Ruth St. Denis and music for comic operas of Jesse Louis Lasky. [6] He was employed at the School of Radio Technique at the Rockefeller Center, as the head of the musical department for five years before his death. He died in New York in 1941. [7]
His score for A Daughter of the Gods, which was the most expensive movie made until then, was created especially for the movie, which was then unusual. The score was explicitly mentioned in the advertisements for the movie [8] and was described in 1921 as the most memorable up to that time, [9] and as "a high point of motion picture music". [10]
robert hood bowers.
robert hood bowers.
John Coolidge Adams is an American composer and conductor of classical music and opera, with strong roots in minimalism.
Philip Glass is an American composer and pianist. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential composers of the late 20th century. Glass's work has been associated with minimalism, being built up from repetitive phrases and shifting layers. Glass describes himself as a composer of "music with repetitive structures", which he has helped evolve stylistically.
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky was a Russian-born composer, pianist, and conductor. He is widely considered one of the most important and influential composers of the 20th century.
Leonard Bernstein was an American composer, conductor, pianist, music educator, author, and lifelong humanitarian. He was one of the most significant American cultural personalities of the 20th century. According to music critic Donal Henahan, he was "one of the most prodigiously talented and successful musicians in American history".
"Alexander's Ragtime Band" is a Tin Pan Alley song by American composer Irving Berlin released in 1911 and is often inaccurately cited as his first global hit. Although not a traditional ragtime song, Berlin's jaunty melody nonetheless "sold a million copies of sheet music in 1911, then another million in 1912, and continued to sell for years afterward. It was the number one song from October 1911 through January 1912." The song might be regarded as a narrative sequel to "Alexander and His Clarinet," which Berlin wrote with Ted Snyder in 1910. The earlier song is mostly concerned with a reconciliation between an African-American musician named Alexander Adams and his flame Eliza Johnson, but also highlights Alexander's innovative musical style.
Charles Edward Ives was an American modernist composer, one of the first American composers of international renown. His music was largely ignored during his early life, and many of his works went unperformed for many years. Later in life, the quality of his music was publicly recognized, and he came to be regarded as an "American original". He was also among the first composers to engage in a systematic program of experimental music, with musical techniques including polytonality, polyrhythm, tone clusters, aleatory elements, and quarter tones. His experimentation foreshadowed many musical innovations that were later more widely adopted during the 20th century. Hence, he is often regarded as the leading American composer of art music of the 20th century.
Ferdinand Rudolph von Grofé, known as Ferde Grofé was an American composer, arranger, pianist and instrumentalist. He is best known for his 1931 five-movement tone poem, Grand Canyon Suite.
Pierre Benjamin Monteux was a French conductor. After violin and viola studies, and a decade as an orchestral player and occasional conductor, he began to receive regular conducting engagements in 1907. He came to prominence when, for Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes company between 1911 and 1914, he conducted the world premieres of Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring and other prominent works including Petrushka, Ravel's Daphnis et Chloé, and Debussy's Jeux. Thereafter he directed orchestras around the world for more than half a century.
Marvin Frederick Hamlisch was an American composer and conductor. Hamlisch was one of only sixteen people to win Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony awards. This collection of all four is referred to as an "EGOT". He is one of only two people to have won those four prizes and a Pulitzer Prize ("PEGOT").
Erich Wolfgang Korngold was an Austrian-born composer and conductor. A child prodigy, he became one of the most important and influential composers in Hollywood history. He was a noted pianist and composer of classical music, along with music for Hollywood films, and the first composer of international stature to write Hollywood scores.
André Charles Prosper Messager was a French composer, organist, pianist and conductor. His compositions include eight ballets and thirty opéras comiques, opérettes and other stage works, among which his ballet Les Deux Pigeons (1886) and opéra comique Véronique (1898) have had lasting success; Les P'tites Michu (1897) and Monsieur Beaucaire (1919) were also popular internationally.
Jesse Louis Lasky was an American pioneer motion picture producer. He was a key founder of Paramount Pictures with Adolph Zukor and William Wadsworth Hodkinson, and father of screenwriter Jesse L. Lasky Jr.
Félix Marie Henri Tilkin, better known by his pen name Ivan Caryll, was a Belgian composer of operettas and Edwardian musical comedies in the English language. He composed some forty musical comedies and operettas.
Famous Players-Lasky Corporation was an American motion picture and distribution company created on July 19, 1916, from the merger of Adolph Zukor's Famous Players Film Company—originally formed by Zukor as Famous Players in Famous Plays—and the Jesse L. Lasky Feature Play Company.
Walter Alfred Slaughter was an English conductor and composer of musical comedy, comic opera and children's shows. He was engaged in the West End as a composer and musical director from 1883 to 1904.
Alfredo Antonini was a leading Italian-American symphony conductor and composer who was active on the international concert stage as well as on the CBS radio and television networks from the 1930s through the early 1970s. In 1972 he received an Emmy Award for Outstanding Achievement in Religious Programming on television for his conducting of the premiere of Ezra Laderman's opera And David Wept for CBS television during 1971. In addition, he was awarded the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic in 1980
George Guy Oliver was an American actor. He appeared in at least 189 silent film era motion pictures and 32 talkies in character roles between 1911 and 1931. His obituary gives him credit for at least 600. He directed three films in 1915.
Aloma of the South Seas is a 1926 American silent comedy drama film starring Gilda Gray as an erotic dancer, filmed in Puerto Rico and Bermuda, and based on a 1925 play of the same title by John B. Hymer and LeRoy Clemens. Grossing $3 million in the U.S. alone, this was the most successful film of 1926 and the fourth most successful film of the 1920s.
This is a summary of 1913 in music in the United Kingdom.
This is a summary of 1911 in music in the United Kingdom.