Jump to Content

Collection Guide
Collection Title:
Collection Number:
Get Items:
North (Alex) Motion Picture Music
PASC-M.0017  
View entire collection guide What's This?
Search this collection
Collection Overview
 
Table of contents What's This?
Description
The collection contains scores for forty-six feature films, as well as two television documentaries, a television movie, and a promotional film for the Ford Motor Company. It also includes the score North composed for 2001: A Space Odyssey, which was unused.
Background
North was born Isadore Soifer on December 4, 1910, in Chester, PA; attended the Curtis Institute, Juilliard School, and Moscow Conservatory; became music director of the German Theater Group and the Latvian State Theater, and the only American member of the Union of Soviet Composers; returned to the US in 1935; studied with Ernst Toch and Aaron Copland in NY, and composed ballet scores for Martha Graham, Hanya Holm, and Agnes de Mille; composed for the NY stage, including scores for Life and Death of an American (1939), Of V We Sing (1942), and Death of a Salesman (1949); wrote music for some 50 documentary shorts between 1937-50; in 1939 went to Mexico as music director for the Anna Sokolow dance troupe and studied with Silvestre Revueltas; served as a captain in the US Army in World War II; his Revue for Clarinet and Orchestra was performed by Benny Goodman and the NY Philharmonic under Leonard Bernstein in 1946; began scoring feature films in the early 1950s, becoming a leading Hollywood composer; his musical language encompasses dissonance and lyricism, and ranges from chamber to symphonic proportions; he was nominated for 15 Academy Awards but did not win one until 1986, when the Motion Picture Academy presented him with an honorary life-achievement award; he died on September 8, 1991 in Los Angeles.
Extent
33.2 Linear Feet (83 flat boxes.)
Restrictions
Property rights to the physical objects belong to UCLA Library Special Collections. All other rights, including copyright, are retained by the creators and their heirs. It is the responsibility of the researcher to determine who holds the copyright and pursue the copyright owner or his or her heir for permission to publish where The UC Regents do not hold the copyright.
Availability
Open for research. All requests to access special collections materials must be made in advance using the request button located on this page.