André Kostelanetz was a popular orchestral music conductor

Conducting

Conducting is the art of directing a musical performance by way of visible gestures. The primary duties of the conductor are to unify performers, set the tempo, execute clear preparations and beats, and to listen critically and shape the sound of the ensemble...

 and arranger, one of the pioneers of easy listening

Easy listening

Easy listening is a broad style of popular music and radio format that emerged in the 1950s, evolving out of big band music, and related to MOR music as played on many AM radio stations. It encompasses the exotica, beautiful music, light music, lounge music, ambient music, and space age pop genres...

 music

Music

Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...

.

Biography

Born in Saint Petersburg

Saint Petersburg

Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...

, Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

, Kostelanetz escaped in 1922 after the Russian Revolution. He arrived in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 that year, and in the 1920s, conducted concerts for radio

Radio

Radio is the transmission of signals through free space by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible light. Electromagnetic radiation travels by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space...

. In the 1930s, he began his own weekly show on CBS

CBS

CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...

, André Kostelanetz Presents.

Kostelanetz was known for arranging and recording light classical music pieces for mass audiences, as well as orchestral versions of songs

Popular music

Popular music belongs to any of a number of musical genres "having wide appeal" and is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. It stands in contrast to both art music and traditional music, which are typically disseminated academically or orally to smaller, local...

 and Broadway

Broadway theatre

Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...

 show tunes. He made numerous recordings over the course of his career, which had sales of over 50 million and became staples of beautiful music

Beautiful music

Beautiful music is a mostly instrumental music format that was prominent in American radio from the 1960s through the 1980s...

 radio station

Radio station

Radio broadcasting is a one-way wireless transmission over radio waves intended to reach a wide audience. Stations can be linked in radio networks to broadcast a common radio format, either in broadcast syndication or simulcast or both...

s. For many years, Kostelanetz also conducted the New York Philharmonic

New York Philharmonic

The New York Philharmonic is a symphony orchestra based in New York City in the United States. It is one of the American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five"...

 in pops

Pops orchestra

A pops orchestra is an orchestra that plays popular music and show tunes as well as well-known classical works. Pops orchestras are generally organised in large cities and are distinct from the more "highbrow" symphony or philharmonic orchestras which also may exist in the same city...

 concerts and recordings, in which they were billed as Andre Kostelanetz and His Orchestra.

André Kostelanetz may be best known to modern audiences for a series of easy listening

Easy listening

Easy listening is a broad style of popular music and radio format that emerged in the 1950s, evolving out of big band music, and related to MOR music as played on many AM radio stations. It encompasses the exotica, beautiful music, light music, lounge music, ambient music, and space age pop genres...

 instrumental

Instrumental

An instrumental is a musical composition or recording without lyrics or singing, although it might include some non-articulate vocal input; the music is primarily or exclusively produced by musical instruments....

 albums on Columbia Records

Columbia Records

Columbia Records is an American record label, owned by Japan's Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group with Aware Records. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company — successor to the Volta Graphophone Company...

 from the 1940s until 1980. Kostelanetz actually started making this music before there was a genre called "easy listening" . He continued until after some of his contemporaries, including Mantovani

Mantovani

Annunzio Paolo Mantovani known as Mantovani, was an Anglo-Italian conductor and light orchestra-styled entertainer with a cascading strings musical signature. The book British Hit Singles & Albums states that he was "Britain's most successful album act before The Beatles .....

, had stopped recording.

Outside the United States, one of his best known works was an orchestral arrangement of the tune "With a Song in my Heart", which was the signature tune of a long-running BBC

BBC

The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

 radio program, at first called Forces Favourites, then Family Favourites

Family Favourites

Successor to the wartime show Forces Favourites, Family Favourites was broadcast at Sunday lunchtimes on the BBC Light Programme, BBC Radio 2 and the British Forces Broadcasting Service until 1980...

, and finally Two Way Family Favourites.

He commissioned many works, including Aaron Copland

Aaron Copland

Aaron Copland was an American composer, composition teacher, writer, and later in his career a conductor of his own and other American music. He was instrumental in forging a distinctly American style of composition, and is often referred to as "the Dean of American Composers"...

's Lincoln Portrait

Lincoln Portrait

Lincoln Portrait is a classical orchestral work written by the American composer Aaron Copland. The work involves a full orchestra, with particular emphasis on the brass section at climactic moments. The work is narrated with the reading of excerpts of Abraham Lincoln's great documents, including...

, Jerome Kern

Jerome Kern

Jerome David Kern was an American composer of musical theatre and popular music. One of the most important American theatre composers of the early 20th century, he wrote more than 700 songs, used in over 100 stage works, including such classics as "Ol' Man River", "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man", "A...

's Portrait of Mark Twain

Mark Twain

Samuel Langhorne Clemens , better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist...

, William Schuman

William Schuman

William Howard Schuman was an American composer and music administrator.-Life:Born in Manhattan in New York City to Samuel and Rachel Schuman, Schuman was named after the twenty-seventh U.S. president, William Howard Taft, although his family preferred to call him Bill...

's New England Triptych

New England Triptych

New England Triptych is a symphonic composition by William Schuman. The work lasts about 16 minutes, and is written for an orchestra of 3 flutes , 2 oboes, English horn, E-flat clarinet, 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion , and...

, Paul Creston

Paul Creston

Paul Creston was an Italian American composer of classical music.Born in New York City to Sicilian immigrants, Creston was self‐taught as a composer. He was an honorary member of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia music fraternity, initiated into the national honorary Alpha Alpha chapter...

's Frontiers, Ferde Grofé

Ferde Grofé

Ferde Grofé was a prominent American composer, arranger and pianist. During the 1920s and 1930s, he went by the name Ferdie Grofé.-Early life:...

's Hudson River Suite, Virgil Thomson

Virgil Thomson

Virgil Thomson was an American composer and critic. He was instrumental in the development of the "American Sound" in classical music...

's musical portraits of Fiorello La Guardia and Dorothy Thompson

Dorothy Thompson

Dorothy Thompson was an American journalist and radio broadcaster, who in 1939 was recognized by Time magazine as the second most influential women in America next to Eleanor Roosevelt...

, Alan Hovhaness

Alan Hovhaness

Alan Hovhaness was an Armenian-American composer.His music is accessible to the lay listener and often evokes a mood of mystery or contemplation...

's Floating World, and Ezra Laderman

Ezra Laderman

Ezra Laderman is an American composer of classical music.-Biography:His parents, Isidor and Leah, both emigrated to the United States from Poland. Though poor, the family had a piano. Ezra writes, "At four, I was improvising at the piano; at seven, I began to compose music, writing it down...

's Magic Prison. William Walton

William Walton

Sir William Turner Walton OM was an English composer. During a sixty-year career, he wrote music in several classical genres and styles, from film scores to opera...

 dedicated his Capriccio burlesco

Capriccio burlesco

Capriccio burlesco is an orchestral work by Sir William Walton, written between May and September 1968 at his home in Ischia, Italy.It was commissioned by the New York Philharmonic in celebration of its 125th anniversary, and was dedicated to Andre Kostelanetz, who conducted the first performance...

 to Kostelanetz, who conducted the first performance and made the first recording, both with the New York Philharmonic.

Toward the end of his recording career, his name was more of a brand than a true representation of who actually made the music, because nearly all of his output in the 1970s was arranged by others. Some of the arrangers credited on 1970s Kostelanetz albums include Teo Macero

Teo Macero

Teo Macero , born Attilio Joseph Macero, was an American jazz saxophonist, composer, and record producer...

, Torrie Zito

Torrie Zito

Torrie Zito was an American pianist, music arranger, composer and conductor.He worked with many recording artists of note, including Billie Holiday, Stan Getz, Perry Como, Billy Eckstine, Herbie Mann, Steve Lawrence, Edie Gorme, Nana Mouskouri, Bobby Short, Marvin Hamlish, Roberto Carlos, Sinead...

, Hank Levy

Hank Levy

Hank Levy was an American jazz composer and saxophonist whose works often employed unusual time signatures...

, Luther Henderson

Luther Henderson

Luther Henderson was an African American arranger, composer, orchestrator, and pianist.Born in Kansas City, Missouri, he was educated at the Juilliard School of Music where he received a B.S. in 1942...

, Jack Cortner, Eddie Sauter

Eddie Sauter

Edward Ernest Sauter was a composer and jazz arranger who achieved renown among musicians during the swing era.-Biography:...

, Claus Ogerman

Claus Ogerman

Claus Ogerman is a German musical arranger/ orchestrator, conductor, and composer, best known for his works with Antonio Carlos Jobim, Frank Sinatra and Diana Krall.-Life and work:...

, Jack Pleis, Tommy Newsom

Tommy Newsom

Thomas Penn "Tommy" Newsom was a saxophone player in the NBC Orchestra on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, for which he later became assistant director. Newsom was frequently the band's substitute director, whenever Doc Severinsen was away from the show or filling in for announcer Ed...

, Harold Wheeler, Bobby Scott

Bobby Scott (musician)

Bobby Scott was an American musician, record producer, and songwriter.-Biography:He was born Robert William Scott in Mount Pleasant, New York, and became a pianist, vibraphonist, and singer, and could also play the accordion, cello, clarinet, and double bass...

, LaMont Johnson

LaMont Johnson

LaMont Johnson was an American jazz pianist who played in the hard bop and post-bop genres. He recorded extensively with Jackie McLean during the 1960s, and also recorded with Ornette Coleman, Kenny Burrell, Bud Shank, Paul Beaver, and Bernie Krause, among others.- Biography :Johnson was born in...

, Wade Marcus

Wade Marcus

Wade Marcus was a producer during the 1970s. He composed the music to the film The Final Comedown with Grant Green. He also produced albums by The Blackbyrds, Gary Bartz, A Taste of Honey, The Sylvers, Eddie Kendricks, The Dramatics, Peaches & Herb, Donald Byrd, G. C...

, Patrick Williams, Sammy Nestico

Sammy Nestico

Samuel "Sammy" Louis Nestico is a prolific and well known composer and arranger of big band music...

, Warren Vincent, Dick Hyman

Dick Hyman

Richard “Dick” Hyman is an American jazz pianist/keyboardist and composer, best-known for his versatility with jazz piano styles. Over a 50 year career, he has functioned as pianist, organist, arranger, music director, and, increasingly, as composer...

, Jorge Calandrelli

Jorge Calandrelli

Jorge Calandrelli is an Argentine composer, arranger and orchestrator.His truly ingenious arranging and composing techniques, especially his beautiful string writing, makes him very well recognized on many records of today's pop - jazz/ Jazz commercial record publications.Big record stars hired him...

 and Don Sebesky

Don Sebesky

Don Sebesky is an American jazz trombonist and arranger.-Biography:Sebesky trained in trombone at the Manhattan School of Music; in his early career, he played with Kai Winding, Claude Thornhill, Tommy Dorsey, Warren Covington, Maynard Ferguson and Stan Kenton...

.

Kostelanetz's last concert was A Night in Old Vienna with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra at that city's War Memorial Opera House on December 31, 1979.

Personal life

He was the second husband of the soprano Lily Pons

Lily Pons

Lily Pons was a French-American operatic soprano and actress who had an active career from the late 1920s through the early 1970s. As an opera singer she specialized in the coloratura soprano repertoire and was particularly associated with the title roles in Léo Delibes' Lakmé and Gaetano...

; they were married from 1938 to 1958, when the marriage was dissolved.

Discography

• The Music of Victor Herbert, Columbia Masterworks M-415
• Tchaikovsky: Nutcracker Suite, Op. 71a, 1956, Columbia Long Playing CL 730
• Music of Irving Berlin, 1950, Columbia Masterworks MM/ML-4314
• The Music of Stephen Foster, 1941, 3 LP Set, Columbia Masterworks M-442 78's
• The Music of Chopin, 1949, Columbia Masterworks MM-840
• Waltzes Of Johann Strauss, 195?, Columbia Masterworks ML-2011 10" album
• Music of Cole Porter, 1951, Columbia Masterworks ML-2014
• Music of George Gershwin, 1951, Columbia Masterworks 2026
• Mississippi Suite, 195?, Columbia Masterworks ML-2046 10" album
• Invitation To The Waltz, 195?, Columbia Masterworks ML-2069 10" album
• Swan Lake, Columbia Masterworks ML-4308 195?
• An American In Paris, Columbia Masterworks ML-4455 195?
• Black Magic, 1955, Columbia CL 712
• Prokofiev, Peter and the Wolf & Saint-Seans, Carnival of the Animals, 1955, Columbia CL 720
• Music of Vincent Youmans, 1955, Columbia CL 734
• Verdi: Aida, 1956, Columbia CL 755
• Bravo!, Columbia CL 758
• Vienna Nights, Columbia CL 769
• Music of Fritz Kreisler, Music of Sigmund Romberg, 1955, Columbia CL 771
• You and the Night and the Music, 1956, Columbia CL 772
• Music of Jerome Kern, 1956, Columbia CL 776
• The Lure of the Tropics, 1956, Columbia CL 780
• Stardust, 1956, Columbia CL 781
• Kostelanetz Conducts..., Columbia CL 786
• An American In Paris/Rhapsody In Blue ---Columbia-CL-795 195?
• La Boheme for Orchestra, 1953, Columbia CL 797
• Clair de Lune and Popular Favorites", Columbia-CL-798 1956
• La Traviata Verdi, Columbia CL 799
• Strauss Waltzes, Columbia CL 805
• Calendar Girl, Columbia CL 811 1956
• Cafe Continental, Columbia CL 863
• Broadway Spectacular, 1957, Columbia CL 865
• Tender Is the Night, 1957, Columbia CL 886
• The Romantic Music of Rachmaninoff, 1957, Columbia CL 1001
• Blues Opera, Columbia CL 1099
• Encore!, Columbia CL 1135
• The Columbia Album of Richard Rodgers, 1958, Columbia CL 1140
• Theatre Party, 1958, Columbia CL 1199
• The Romantic Music of Tchaikovsky, Vol. 1, 1958, Columbia CL 1208
• The Romantic Music of Tchaikovsky, Vol. 2, 1958, Columbia CL 1209
• Romantic Arias for Orchestra, 1959, Columbia CL 1263
• Music from Flower Drum Song, 1959, Columbia CL 1280/CS 8095
• Great Waltzes, 1959, Columbia CL 1321
• The Lure of Paradise, 1959, Columbia CL 1335/CS 8144
• Strauss Waltzes, 1959, Columbia CL 1354/CS 8162
• Gypsy Passion, 1960, Columbia CL 1431/CS 8228
• Joy To The World, 1960, Columbia CL 1528/CS 8328
• The Unsinkable Molly Brown, 1960, Columbia CL 1576/CS 8376
• Kostelanetz Favorites Columbia ML 4065
• The Nutcracker Suite, 1961, Columbia Masterworks 6264
• The New Wonderland Of Sound, 1961, Columbia CL 1657/CS 8457
• Star Spangled Marches, 1962, Columbia CL 1718/CS 8518
• Broadway's Greatest Hits, 1962, Columbia CL 1827/CS 8627
• Fire and Jealousy, Columbia CL 1898/CS 8698
• Music from "Mr. President", 1962, Columbia CL 1921/CS 8721
• Wonderland Of Sound, 1963, Columbia-CL-1938
• Wonderland of Golden Hits, 1963, Columbia CL 2039/CS 8839
• Wonderland of Christmas, 1963, Columbia CL 2068/CS 8868
• New York Wonderland, 1964, Columbia CL 2138/CS 8938
• I Wish You Love, 1964, Columbia CL 2185/CS 8985
• New Orleans Wonderland, 1964, Columbia CL 2250/CS 9050
• The Romantic Strings of Andre Kostelanetz, 1965, Columbia Masterworks ML 6119/MS 6711
• Wishing You a Merry Christmas, 1965, Columbia Masterworks ML 6179/MS 6779
• Romantic Waltzes by Tchaikovsky, 1965, Columbia Masterworks MS 6824
• Today's Golden Hits, 1966, Columbia CS 9334
• The Shadow of Your Smile, 1966, Columbia CS 13285
• The Kostelanetz Sound of Today, 1967, Columbia CS 9409
• Scarborough Fair, 1968, Columbia CS 9623
• For the Young at Heart, 1968, Columbia CS 9691
• Traces, 1969, Columbia 13282
• Greatest Hits of the '60s, 1970, Columbia CS 9973
• I'll Never Fall In Love Again, 1970, Columbia CS 9998
• Everything Is Beautiful, 1970, Columbia 30037
• Sunset, 1970, Columbia Masterworks 30075
• And God Created Great Whales (Hovhaness), 1971, Columbia 30390
• Love Story, 1971, Columbia 30501
• For All We Know, 1971, Columbia 30672
• Plays Chicago, 1971, Columbia 31002
• Plays Cole Porter, 1972, Columbia 31491
• Love Theme From "The Godfather
  The Godfather
  The Godfather is a 1972 American epic crime film directed by Francis Ford Coppola, based on the 1969 novel by Mario Puzo. With a screenplay by Puzo, Coppola and an uncredited Robert Towne, the film stars Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan, Robert Duvall, Sterling Hayden, John Marley, Richard...
  
  ", 1972, Harmony 31500
• Last Tango In Paris, 1973, Columbia 32187
• Moon River
  Moon River
  "Moon River" is a song composed by Johnny Mercer and Henry Mancini in 1961, for whom it won that year's Academy Award for Best Original Song. It was originally sung in the movie Breakfast at Tiffany's by Audrey Hepburn, although it has been covered by many other artists...
  
  , 1973, Columbia 32243
• Plays Great Hits of Today, 1973, Columbia 32415
• The Way We Were, 1974, Columbia 32578
• Plays Michel Legrand
  Michel Legrand
  Michel Jean Legrand is a French musical composer, arranger, conductor, and pianist...
  
  's Greatest Hits, 1974, Columbia 32580
• Musical Reflections of Broadway And Hollywood, 1974, Columbia 33061
• Plays "Murder on the Orient Express", 1975, Columbia 33437
• Never Can Say Goodbye, 1975, Columbia 33550
• I'm Easy, 1976, Columbia 34157
• Dance With Me, 1976, Columbia 34352
• Plays Broadway's Greatest Hits, 1977, Columbia 34864
• You Light Up My Life, 1978, Columbia 35328
• Theme From "Superman", 1979, Columbia 35781
• Various Themes, 1980, Columbia 36382
• Andre Kostelanetz & His Orchestra: "Carmen" LP #693cl735 Columbia 1950 U.S.A.

External links