Nathaniel Shilkret
Encyclopedia
Nathaniel Shilkret was an American composer, conductor, clarinetist, pianist, business executive, and music director born in New York City, New York
to an Austria
n immigrant family.
Shilkret was a child prodigy, touring the country with the New York Boys' Orchestra from the ages of seven to thirteen as their clarinet soloist. From his late teens to mid-twenties he was a clarinetist in the best New York music organizations, including the New York Philharmonic Society (under Vassily Safanov and Gustav Mahler
), the New York Symphony Orchestra, the Metropolitan Opera House Orchestra, the Russian Symphony Orchestra, Victor Herbert
's Orchestra, Arnold Volpe
's Orchestra, Sousa
's Grand Concert Band, Arthur Pryor
's Band, and Edwin Franko Goldman
's Band. He was also a rehearsal pianist for Walter Damrosch, playing for stars that included dancer Isadora Duncan
.
He joined the Foreign Department of the Victor Talking Machine Company
(later to become RCA Victor) around 1915, and soon was made manager of the department.
In 1926 he became "director of light music." He made many thousands of recordings, possibly more than anyone in recording history. His son Arthur estimated the sales of these records was of the order of 50 million copies. He was the conductor of choice for many of Victor's innovative recordings. He conducted the first record made by the "electric method," the first commercial Victor LP (in 1931!) and was the first conductor to successfully dub an electrically recorded orchestra background over the recordings of Enrico Caruso, Victor's star artist, who died before the vastly superior electrical recording method was developed. He conducted the orchestra for the premier recording of George Gershwin
's symphonic poem An American in Paris
, in 1929. This recording was one of five recordings conducted by Nathaniel Shilkret that eventually earned Grammy Awards.
, regarded as the first major commercial broadcast and the first major variety show. His sponsors included Camel, Carnation, Chesterfield, Esso (now ExxonMobil), Eveready, General Electric, General Motors, Hires Root Beer
, Knickerbocker, Lysol, Maxwell House, Mobil Oil (now ExxonMobil), Palmolive, RCA Victor, Salada tea
and Smith Brothers' Cough Drops.
Between his conducting for records and for radio, virtually every musical star of the day performed under the baton of Nathaniel Shilkret. His orchestra members included Jimmy Dorsey
, Tommy Dorsey
, Benny Goodman
, Lionel Hampton
, Glenn Miller
, Artie Shaw
, Mike Mosiello
and Del Staigers. George Gershwin
, Jascha Heifetz
, Mischa Elman and Andrés Segovia
all played under his direction. Opera stars Rose Bampton
, Lucrezia Bori
, Feodor Chaliapin
, Jon Crain, Richard Crooks
, Miguel Fleta
, Emilio de Gogorza
, Amelita Galli-Curci
, Mary Garden
, Beniamino Gigli
, Helen Jepson
, Maria Jeritza
, Giovanni Martinelli
, Nino Martini
, John McCormack, James Melton
, Grace Moore
, Jan Peerce
, Lily Pons
, Rosa Ponselle
, Elisabeth Rethberg
, Gladys Rice, Tito Schipa
, Gladys Swarthout
, John Charles Thomas
, and Lawrence Tibbett
were all conducted by Nathaniel Shilkret. The lists of popular singers and foreign artists that played under his direction are just as impressive.
He composed and arranged thousands of pieces. His best-known popular composition was The Lonesome Road
, first sung by co-writer Gene Austin
and later by Jules Bledsoe
(dubbing Stepin Fetchit
) in the final scene of the 1929 part-talkie film version of "Show Boat"
, and recorded by more than two hundred artists, including Louis Armstrong
, Bing Crosby
, Frank Sinatra
and Paul Robeson
. He composed the theme song Lady Divine for the Academy Award winning film The Divine Lady
in 1929. He also composed the theme song Some Sweet Day for the film Children of the Ritz in the same year. His composition Jeannine, I Dream of Lilac Time sold almost two million copies of sheet music and was also recorded by over a hundred top artists, including Louis Armstrong
, Skitch Henderson
, Guy Lombardo
, The London Philharmonic Orchestra, John McCormack, Mitch Miller
, Hugo Montenegro
, The Platters
, and Lawrence Welk
. His composition Concerto for Trombone was premiered in 1945 by Tommy Dorsey
, playing with the New York Symphony Orchestra, under the direction of Leopold Stokowski
. The piece was unavailable to the public from the mid-1950s until Scottish trombonist Bryan Free rescued it from anonymity in the beginning of this century. It was re-premiered at Carnegie Hall by the New York Pops, under the direction of Skitch Henderson
, with Jim Pugh
as soloist. Since its revival, the Concerto for Trombone
has been performed about sixty times (with more performances scheduled) in the United States, Canada and several European countries.
. He also received an Oscar nomination for his work scoring the film version of Maxwell Anderson
's stage drama Winterset (1936).
In 1939, he conducted a group of soloists (including tenor Jan Peerce
) and the Victor Symphony Orchestra for RCA Victor's multi-disc tribute to Victor Herbert
, which were recorded following a special NBC
radio broadcast, and he recorded a number of other albums in 1939 and 1940. Due to a serious abdominal operation for cancer removal, he did not conduct for most of 1941.
He worked at RKO-Pathe, making short films from 1946 through the mid-1950s. He was the pit orchestra conductor for the Broadway show Paris '90 in 1952. He lived in his son's home in Franklin Square, NY, from the mid-1950s until his death in 1982.
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
to an Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
n immigrant family.
Early career
Shilkret was born to a musical family. His father played almost every instrument, and made certain that Nat and his three brothers were all accomplished musicians at an early age. Older brother Lew Shilkret was a fine pianist, but also worked in the insurance industry. Younger brother Jack Shilkret had a career that paralleled Nathaniel's career: he played clarinet and piano, recorded extensively, and conducted and played piano on the radio and in motion pictures. The youngest brother Harry Shilkret was a medical doctor, who worked his way through school playing trumpet, and continued to play trumpet frequently in Nathaniel's orchestras, particularly for radio broadcasts, long after he was a practicing allergist. Nathaniel Shilkret's brother-in-law, Nathaniel Finston, was violinist in many organizations in his youth and was musical director for Paramount and later for MGM, at one time being Nathaniel Shilkret's boss.Shilkret was a child prodigy, touring the country with the New York Boys' Orchestra from the ages of seven to thirteen as their clarinet soloist. From his late teens to mid-twenties he was a clarinetist in the best New York music organizations, including the New York Philharmonic Society (under Vassily Safanov and Gustav Mahler
Gustav Mahler
Gustav Mahler was a late-Romantic Austrian composer and one of the leading conductors of his generation. He was born in the village of Kalischt, Bohemia, in what was then Austria-Hungary, now Kaliště in the Czech Republic...
), the New York Symphony Orchestra, the Metropolitan Opera House Orchestra, the Russian Symphony Orchestra, Victor Herbert
Victor Herbert
Victor August Herbert was an Irish-born, German-raised American composer, cellist and conductor. Although Herbert enjoyed important careers as a cello soloist and conductor, he is best known for composing many successful operettas that premiered on Broadway from the 1890s to World War I...
's Orchestra, Arnold Volpe
Arnold Volpe
Arnold Volpe was a Lithuanian-born American composer and conductor who came to the United States in 1898. He composed mainly chamber music, including a string quartet, as well as a mazurka for violin and orchestra...
's Orchestra, Sousa
Sousa
-Surname:*Sousa *John Philip Sousa, American bandleader and composer, writer of America's national march*Francis Newton Souza, Indian artist and founding member of the Progressive Artists' Group of Bombay...
's Grand Concert Band, Arthur Pryor
Arthur Pryor
Arthur Willard Pryor was a trombone virtuoso, bandleader, and soloist with the Sousa Band. In later life, he was an American Democratic Party politician from New Jersey, who served on the Monmouth County, New Jersey Board of Chosen Freeholders during the 1930s.Pryor was born on the second floor of...
's Band, and Edwin Franko Goldman
Edwin Franko Goldman
Edwin Franko Goldman is one of America's prominent band composers of the early 20th century. He composed over 150 works, more notably his marches. He is known for founding the renowned Goldman Band of New York City and the American Bandmasters Association...
's Band. He was also a rehearsal pianist for Walter Damrosch, playing for stars that included dancer Isadora Duncan
Isadora Duncan
Isadora Duncan was a dancer, considered by many to be the creator of modern dance. Born in the United States, she lived in Western Europe and the Soviet Union from the age of 22 until her death at age 50. In the United States she was popular only in New York, and only later in her life...
.
He joined the Foreign Department of the Victor Talking Machine Company
Victor Talking Machine Company
The Victor Talking Machine Company was an American corporation, the leading American producer of phonographs and phonograph records and one of the leading phonograph companies in the world at the time. It was headquartered in Camden, New Jersey....
(later to become RCA Victor) around 1915, and soon was made manager of the department.
In 1926 he became "director of light music." He made many thousands of recordings, possibly more than anyone in recording history. His son Arthur estimated the sales of these records was of the order of 50 million copies. He was the conductor of choice for many of Victor's innovative recordings. He conducted the first record made by the "electric method," the first commercial Victor LP (in 1931!) and was the first conductor to successfully dub an electrically recorded orchestra background over the recordings of Enrico Caruso, Victor's star artist, who died before the vastly superior electrical recording method was developed. He conducted the orchestra for the premier recording of George Gershwin
George Gershwin
George Gershwin was an American composer and pianist. Gershwin's compositions spanned both popular and classical genres, and his most popular melodies are widely known...
's symphonic poem An American in Paris
An American in Paris
An American in Paris is a symphonic tone poem by the American composer George Gershwin, written in 1928. Inspired by the time Gershwin had spent in Paris, it evokes the sights and energy of the French capital in the 1920s. It is one of Gershwin's best-known compositions.Gershwin composed the piece...
, in 1929. This recording was one of five recordings conducted by Nathaniel Shilkret that eventually earned Grammy Awards.
Radio and the recording studio
He was also one of radio's earliest stars, estimating that he made over 3000 broadcasts between 1925 and 1941, including being the conductor for The Eveready HourThe Eveready Hour
The Eveready Hour was the first commercially sponsored variety program in the history of broadcasting. It premiered December 4, 1923 on WEAF Radio in New York. Radio's first sponsored network program. it was paid for by the National Carbon Company, which at the time owned Eveready Battery...
, regarded as the first major commercial broadcast and the first major variety show. His sponsors included Camel, Carnation, Chesterfield, Esso (now ExxonMobil), Eveready, General Electric, General Motors, Hires Root Beer
Hires Root Beer
Hires Root Beer is a soft drink which is currently marketed by Dr Pepper Snapple Group. The manufacturer considers it the longest continuously made soft drink in the United States; however, Vernor's ginger ale is even older dating back to 1866.- History :Hires Root Beer was created by...
, Knickerbocker, Lysol, Maxwell House, Mobil Oil (now ExxonMobil), Palmolive, RCA Victor, Salada tea
Salada tea
Salada tea is a product sold by Salada Foods, a division of Redco Foods, Inc., a United States company.- History :Salada tea was founded in 1892 by Montreal businessman Peter C. Larkin...
and Smith Brothers' Cough Drops.
Between his conducting for records and for radio, virtually every musical star of the day performed under the baton of Nathaniel Shilkret. His orchestra members included Jimmy Dorsey
Jimmy Dorsey
James "Jimmy" Dorsey was a prominent American jazz clarinetist, saxophonist, trumpeter, composer, and big band leader. He was known as "JD"...
, Tommy Dorsey
Tommy Dorsey
Thomas Francis "Tommy" Dorsey, Jr. was an American jazz trombonist, trumpeter, composer, and bandleader of the Big Band era. He was known as "The Sentimental Gentleman of Swing", due to his smooth-toned trombone playing. He was the younger brother of bandleader Jimmy Dorsey...
, Benny Goodman
Benny Goodman
Benjamin David “Benny” Goodman was an American jazz and swing musician, clarinetist and bandleader; widely known as the "King of Swing".In the mid-1930s, Benny Goodman led one of the most popular musical groups in America...
, Lionel Hampton
Lionel Hampton
Lionel Leo Hampton was an American jazz vibraphonist, pianist, percussionist, bandleader and actor. Like Red Norvo, he was one of the first jazz vibraphone players. Hampton ranks among the great names in jazz history, having worked with a who's who of jazz musicians, from Benny Goodman and Buddy...
, Glenn Miller
Glenn Miller
Alton Glenn Miller was an American jazz musician , arranger, composer, and bandleader in the swing era. He was one of the best-selling recording artists from 1939 to 1943, leading one of the best known "Big Bands"...
, Artie Shaw
Artie Shaw
Arthur Jacob Arshawsky , better known as Artie Shaw, was an American jazz clarinetist, composer, and bandleader. He was also the author of both fiction and non-fiction writings....
, Mike Mosiello
Mike Mosiello
Mike Mosiello was an Italian-born American trumpet player.- Biography :...
and Del Staigers. George Gershwin
George Gershwin
George Gershwin was an American composer and pianist. Gershwin's compositions spanned both popular and classical genres, and his most popular melodies are widely known...
, Jascha Heifetz
Jascha Heifetz
Jascha Heifetz was a violinist, born in Vilnius, then Russian Empire, now Lithuania. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest violinists of all time.- Early life :...
, Mischa Elman and Andrés Segovia
Andrés Segovia
Andrés Torres Segovia, 1st Marquis of Salobreña , known as Andrés Segovia, was a virtuoso Spanish classical guitarist from Linares, Jaén, Andalucia, Spain...
all played under his direction. Opera stars Rose Bampton
Rose Bampton
Rose Bampton was a celebrated American opera singer who had an active international career during the 1930s and 1940s. She began her professional career performing mostly minor roles from the mezzo-soprano repertoire in 1929 but later switched to singing primarily leading soprano roles in 1937...
, Lucrezia Bori
Lucrezia Bori
Lucrezia Bori was a Spanish operatic singer, a lyric soprano.-Biography:Lucrezia Bori was born in Valencia, Spain. Her real name was Lucrecia Borja y González de Riancho and her family were reputed to be descended from the Borgias.Her voice had a unique timbre and transparent quality unlike any...
, Feodor Chaliapin
Feodor Chaliapin
Feodor Ivanovich Chaliapin was a Russian opera singer. The possessor of a large and expressive bass voice, he enjoyed an important international career at major opera houses and is often credited with establishing the tradition of naturalistic acting in his chosen art form.During the first phase...
, Jon Crain, Richard Crooks
Richard Crooks
Richard Alexander Crooks was an American tenor and a leading singer at the New York Metropolitan Opera.-Biography:He was born on June 26, 1900 in Trenton, New Jersey...
, Miguel Fleta
Miguel Fleta
Miguel Burró Fleta was a Spanish operatic tenor....
, Emilio de Gogorza
Emilio de Gogorza
Emilio Eduardo de Gogorza was an American baritone of Spanish parentage.He was born in Brooklyn, New York, but brought up and trained musically in Spain. He returned to the USA in his early 20s. He sang in many languages, including French, Italian and English, as well as Spanish...
, Amelita Galli-Curci
Amelita Galli-Curci
Amelita Galli-Curci was an Italian operatic soprano. She was one of the best-known coloratura singers of the early 20th century with her gramophone records selling in large numbers.-Early life:...
, Mary Garden
Mary Garden
Mary Garden , was a Scottish operatic soprano with a substantial career in France and America in the first third of the 20th century...
, Beniamino Gigli
Beniamino Gigli
Beniamino Gigli was an Italian opera singer. The most famous tenor of his generation, he was renowned internationally for the great beauty of his voice and the soundness of his vocal technique. Music critics sometimes took him to task, however, for what was perceived to be the over-emotionalism...
, Helen Jepson
Helen Jepson
Helen Jepson was an American lyric soprano noted for being a "stunning blond beauty" as well as for her voice....
, Maria Jeritza
Maria Jeritza
Maria Jeritza , born Marie Jedličková, was a celebrated Moravian soprano singer, long associated with the Vienna State Opera and the Metropolitan Opera...
, Giovanni Martinelli
Giovanni Martinelli
Giovanni Martinelli was a celebrated Italian operatic tenor. He was particularly associated with the Italian lyric-dramatic repertory, although he performed French operatic roles to great acclaim as well...
, Nino Martini
Nino Martini
Nino Martini was an Italian operatic tenor and actor. He began his career as an opera singer in Italy before moving to the United States to pursue an acting career in films...
, John McCormack, James Melton
James Melton
James Melton , a popular singer in the 1920s and early 1930s, later began a career as an operatic singer when tenor voices went out of style in popular music around 1932-35...
, Grace Moore
Grace Moore
Grace Moore was an American operatic soprano and actress in musical theatre and film. She was nicknamed the "Tennessee Nightingale." Her films helped to popularize opera by bringing it to a larger audience.-Early life:...
, Jan Peerce
Jan Peerce
Jan Peerce was an American operatic tenor. Peerce was an accomplished performer on the operatic and Broadway concert stages, in solo recitals, and as a recording artist. He is the father of film director Larry Peerce....
, 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...
, Rosa Ponselle
Rosa Ponselle
Rosa Ponselle , was an American operatic soprano with a large, opulent voice. She sang mainly at the New York Metropolitan Opera and is generally considered by music critics to have been one of the greatest sopranos of the past 100 years.-Early life:She was born Rosa Ponzillo on January 22, 1897,...
, Elisabeth Rethberg
Elisabeth Rethberg
The German soprano Elisabeth Rethberg was an opera singer of international repute active from the period of the First World War through to the early 1940s. Some hailed her as the greatest soprano of her day...
, Gladys Rice, Tito Schipa
Tito Schipa
Tito Schipa was an Italian tenor. He is considered one of the finest tenori di grazia in operatic history...
, Gladys Swarthout
Gladys Swarthout
Gladys Swarthout was an American mezzo-soprano opera singer.-Career:...
, John Charles Thomas
John Charles Thomas
John Charles Thomas was a popular American opera, operetta and concert baritone.-Birth, schooling and stage debut:...
, and Lawrence Tibbett
Lawrence Tibbett
Lawrence Mervil Tibbett was a great American opera singer and recording artist who also performed as a film actor and radio personality. A baritone, he sang with the New York Metropolitan Opera company more than 600 times from 1923 to 1950...
were all conducted by Nathaniel Shilkret. The lists of popular singers and foreign artists that played under his direction are just as impressive.
Compositions
The Lonesome Road
"The Lonesome Road" is a 1927 song with music by Nathaniel Shilkret and lyrics by Gene Austin, alternately titled "Lonesome Road", "Look Down that Lonesome Road" and "Lonesome Road Blues." It was written in the style of an African-American folk song....
, first sung by co-writer Gene Austin
Gene Austin
Gene Austin was an American singer and songwriter, one of the first "crooners". His 1920s compositions "When My Sugar Walks Down the Street" and "The Lonesome Road" became pop and jazz standards.-Career:...
and later by Jules Bledsoe
Jules Bledsoe
Jules Bledsoe was a once renowned, but now semi-forgotten baritone, and the first African American artist to gain regular employment on Broadway, subsequent to Bert Williams, William Grant Still, Ford Dabney and others....
(dubbing Stepin Fetchit
Stepin Fetchit
Stepin Fetchit was the stage name of American comedian and film actor Lincoln Theodore Monroe Andrew Perry....
) in the final scene of the 1929 part-talkie film version of "Show Boat"
Show Boat (1929 film)
Show Boat is a film based on the novel by Edna Ferber. This version was released by Universal in two editions, one a silent film for movie theatres still not equipped for sound, and one a part-talkie with a sound prologue...
, and recorded by more than two hundred artists, including Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong , nicknamed Satchmo or Pops, was an American jazz trumpeter and singer from New Orleans, Louisiana....
, Bing Crosby
Bing Crosby
Harry Lillis "Bing" Crosby was an American singer and actor. Crosby's trademark bass-baritone voice made him one of the best-selling recording artists of the 20th century, with over half a billion records in circulation....
, Frank Sinatra
Frank Sinatra
Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra was an American singer and actor.Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became an unprecedentedly successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, after being signed to Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the...
and Paul Robeson
Paul Robeson
Paul Leroy Robeson was an American concert singer , recording artist, actor, athlete, scholar who was an advocate for the Civil Rights Movement in the first half of the twentieth century...
. He composed the theme song Lady Divine for the Academy Award winning film The Divine Lady
The Divine Lady
The Divine Lady is a 1929 Vitaphone sound film with a synchronized musical score and sound effects. The film, however, featured no spoken dialogue. The film tells the story of the love affair between Horatio Nelson and Emma Hamilton. It stars Corinne Griffith, Victor Varconi, H.B. Warner, Ian...
in 1929. He also composed the theme song Some Sweet Day for the film Children of the Ritz in the same year. His composition Jeannine, I Dream of Lilac Time sold almost two million copies of sheet music and was also recorded by over a hundred top artists, including Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong , nicknamed Satchmo or Pops, was an American jazz trumpeter and singer from New Orleans, Louisiana....
, Skitch Henderson
Skitch Henderson
Lyle Russell Cedric “Skitch” Henderson was a pianist, conductor, and composer. His nickname reportedly derived from his ability to quickly "re-sketch" a song in a different key.- Biography :...
, Guy Lombardo
Guy Lombardo
Gaetano Alberto "Guy" Lombardo was a Canadian-American bandleader and violinist.Forming "The Royal Canadians" in 1924 with his brothers Carmen, Lebert, and Victor and other musicians from his hometown, Lombardo led the group to international success, billing themselves as creating "The Sweetest...
, The London Philharmonic Orchestra, John McCormack, Mitch Miller
Mitch Miller
Mitchell William "Mitch" Miller was an American musician, singer, conductor, record producer, A&R man and record company executive...
, Hugo Montenegro
Hugo Montenegro
Hugo Montenegro was an American orchestra leader and composer of film soundtracks. His best known work is derived from interpretations of the music from Spaghetti westerns, especially his cover version of the main theme from the 1966 film The Good, the Bad and the Ugly...
, The Platters
The Platters
The Platters were a vocal group of the early rock and roll era. Their distinctive sound was a bridge between the pre-rock Tin Pan Alley tradition and the burgeoning new genre...
, and Lawrence Welk
Lawrence Welk
Lawrence Welk was an American musician, accordionist, bandleader, and television impresario, who hosted The Lawrence Welk Show from 1955 to 1982...
. His composition Concerto for Trombone was premiered in 1945 by Tommy Dorsey
Tommy Dorsey
Thomas Francis "Tommy" Dorsey, Jr. was an American jazz trombonist, trumpeter, composer, and bandleader of the Big Band era. He was known as "The Sentimental Gentleman of Swing", due to his smooth-toned trombone playing. He was the younger brother of bandleader Jimmy Dorsey...
, playing with the New York Symphony Orchestra, under the direction of Leopold Stokowski
Leopold Stokowski
Leopold Anthony Stokowski was a British-born, naturalised American orchestral conductor, well known for his free-hand performing style that spurned the traditional baton and for obtaining a characteristically sumptuous sound from many of the great orchestras he conducted.In America, Stokowski...
. The piece was unavailable to the public from the mid-1950s until Scottish trombonist Bryan Free rescued it from anonymity in the beginning of this century. It was re-premiered at Carnegie Hall by the New York Pops, under the direction of Skitch Henderson
Skitch Henderson
Lyle Russell Cedric “Skitch” Henderson was a pianist, conductor, and composer. His nickname reportedly derived from his ability to quickly "re-sketch" a song in a different key.- Biography :...
, with Jim Pugh
Jim Pugh
Jim Pugh is a former professional tennis player from the United States. A doubles specialist, he won three Grand Slam men's doubles titles and five Grand Slam mixed doubles titles . Pugh reached the World No...
as soloist. Since its revival, the Concerto for Trombone
Concerto for Trombone (Shilkret)
Concerto for Trombone is a 1942 instrumental crossover work in three movements, which trombonist Tommy Dorsey, one of the best known musical entertainment stars of his time, commissioned Nathaniel Shilkret, a noted conductor and composer of music for recording, radio and film, to write...
has been performed about sixty times (with more performances scheduled) in the United States, Canada and several European countries.
Later career
Shilkret moved to Los Angeles in 1935 and there contributed music scores and musical direction for a string of Hollywood films for RKO (as musical director from 1935—1937) and MGM (as a musical director from 1942—1946). His films included Mary of Scotland (1936), Swing Time (1936), The Plough and the Stars, and Shall We Dance? (1937) and several films of Laurel and HardyLaurel and Hardy
Laurel and Hardy were one of the most popular and critically acclaimed comedy double acts of the early Classical Hollywood era of American cinema...
. He also received an Oscar nomination for his work scoring the film version of Maxwell Anderson
Maxwell Anderson
James Maxwell Anderson was an American playwright, author, poet, journalist and lyricist.-Early years:Anderson was born in Atlantic, Pennsylvania, the second of eight children to William Lincoln "Link" Anderson, a Baptist minister, and Charlotte Perrimela Stephenson, both of Scots and Irish descent...
's stage drama Winterset (1936).
In 1939, he conducted a group of soloists (including tenor Jan Peerce
Jan Peerce
Jan Peerce was an American operatic tenor. Peerce was an accomplished performer on the operatic and Broadway concert stages, in solo recitals, and as a recording artist. He is the father of film director Larry Peerce....
) and the Victor Symphony Orchestra for RCA Victor's multi-disc tribute to Victor Herbert
Victor Herbert
Victor August Herbert was an Irish-born, German-raised American composer, cellist and conductor. Although Herbert enjoyed important careers as a cello soloist and conductor, he is best known for composing many successful operettas that premiered on Broadway from the 1890s to World War I...
, which were recorded following a special NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
radio broadcast, and he recorded a number of other albums in 1939 and 1940. Due to a serious abdominal operation for cancer removal, he did not conduct for most of 1941.
He worked at RKO-Pathe, making short films from 1946 through the mid-1950s. He was the pit orchestra conductor for the Broadway show Paris '90 in 1952. He lived in his son's home in Franklin Square, NY, from the mid-1950s until his death in 1982.
External links
- Nat Shilkret
- Nathaniel Shilkret entries in the Encyclopedic Discography of Victor Recordings (University of California, Santa Barbara).
- Franz Liszt, written and directed by James A. Fitzpatrick; fictional 11-minute 1925 film short about Franz Liszt; Nathaniel Shilkret appears, conducting his orchestra.