Cliff Eidelman
My Muse
Composer of over 30 film scores, Cliff Eidelman creates a collection of evocative intimate songs ranging from poetic ethereal to emotional ballads to the energy of city life. Orchestral mixes with acoustic band instruments.
CLIFF EIDELMAN Biography “Cliff Eidelman is a great talent with amazing potential,” Jerry Goldsmith said, when asked in an interview about film composers in 1999. At the age of 42, Eidelman is already a veteran of nineteen years of composing orchestral scores for over thirty films. Eidelman’s breakthrough into public consciousness came with his score Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991), a stylish and powerful score that elicited a great deal of attention and acclaim. The composer has created a number of epic symphonic scores including the powerful Triumph of the Spirit (1989) and Christopher Columbus (1992). Eidelman first ventured into comedy with back-to-back films Crazy People (1990) and Delirious (1990). Later he chose to explore different approaches, often using a pared down orchestra, chamber orchestra, or a few well chosen instruments to capture the intricacies of such character driven films as: Untamed Heart (1992), Leap of Faith (1992), A Simple Twist of Fate (1994), Now and Then (1995), the highest rated HBO film If These Walls Could Talk (1996), One True Thing (1998) starring Meryl Streep Renee Zellweger and William Hurt, Witness Protection (1999), An American Rhapsody ( 2001), the IMAX film Ocean Men (2001), Harrison’s Flowers (2001), Sexual Life (2004), The Sisterhood Of The Traveling Pants (2005) and Open Window (2006). In a body of work that successfully explores intimate and dramatic, expansive epic scores in main stream and independent films, Eidelman consistently creates with freshness and artistry. Eidelman broke into film scoring at the age of 22 when his past caught up with him. A performance tape of one of the two commissions (the ballet Once Upon a Ruler and Celebration Symphony Overture in Three Movements) he composed at Santa Monica City College reached director Monica Teuber. She was so impressed with Eidelman's lush score that she asked him to write some music based on reading her script. Eidelman composed eleven pieces from the reading and recorded the music on synthesizer and a four-track tape machine while still a student of music composition at the University of Southern California. Soon after hearing the tape Teuber hired him to write his first film score, Magdalene (1988), which starred Nastassja Kinski. The young composer took full advantage of this opportunity, launching his career with a huge 75 minute score for a 110 piece orchestra, 60 piece choir and 30 piece children’s choir. When director Richard Pearce heard the Magdalene score playing one morning on KCRW, he had his producers call Eidelman, that afternoon, to offer him the HBO film Dead Man Out (1988). Eidelman accepted and received a 1988 Ace Award nomination for his original score. Magdalene showcased Eidelman's talent for epic and melodic themes and within a year of completing his first film score he was approached by director Robert Young to score his epic drama of WWII, Triumph of the Spirit. It was 1989 and Eidelman was just 24. The score was impressive and deeply moving, dramatically capturing the story of survival against all odds in a German concentration camp. So much so that it has caught the attention of many conductors since its composition and been performed by numerous orchestras. Eidelman created a suite from the score for the final concert at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles in June 2003 by The Los Angeles Master Chorale under the direction of Grant Gershon. It continues to be performed in various venues including a scheduled performance in March 2007 in Alexandria, Virginia. One of the few Los Angeles-born composers working in Hollywood, Cliff Eidelman (born 1964) began his formal musical training at the age of eight, studying the violin. A few years later he switched to guitar as his main instrument and began performing and writing songs for several original rock bands, playing at local Los Angeles clubs before age 14. He studied Jazz guitar at the Guitar Institute of Technology before attending college and formally studying composition and conducting. Although he is known foremost as a composer, Eidelman has conducted all of his film scores and emerged as a talented conductor. He has conducted The Metropolitan Orchestra of London, The Munich Symphony and Chorus, Unione Musicisti Di Roma and Chorus, the Los Angeles Master Chorale, The Royal Scottish National Orchestra, The Toronto Symphony Orchestra, The Seattle Symphony Orchestra and many first call pick up orchestras for his film scores. The recognition he garnered for those recordings prompted Varese Sarabande Records to pursue Eidelman for conducting projects. On two recordings that Eidelman conducted for Varese Sarabande Records, he conducted works by Prokofiev, Shostakovich, and Walton, Rozsa and Rota. Throughout his film scoring career, Eidelman has continued to write original pieces for the concert hall, including Suite for Orchestra in 1985, The Creation Symphony in 1985, and Five Pieces from Stage and Screen in 1987. In 1996, Eidelman was commissioned to compose and conduct a new concert work of his choice. He completed a symphonic tone poem in 3 movements to the story of Shakespeare’s The Tempest, which is available on Varese Sarabande Records. Wedding In The Night Garden, a more recent concert work, was originally orchestrated for strings and mezzo soprano. Eidelman later developed a second version for strings, choir and mezzo soprano which was performed in 2002 by the Los Angeles Master Chorale under the direction of Grant Gershon. It was so well received that Gershon requested a repeat performance and the Los Angeles Master Chorale slated Wedding In The Night Garden for two performances at Walt Disney Concert Hall in their 2005 season. My Muse, a solo song album in which all the music and lyrics are written and performed by Eidelman, was completed in 2006. He is working on a new concert piece currently titled In The Womb. As one of the youngest composers to score a feature film, Eidelman has amassed an impressive body of work for his age. He has created symphonic scores and symphonic poems, musically captured the epic proportions of faith and despair, the whimsies of comic entertainment, and the intimacies of the human heart with a lone guitar, a 100 piece orchestra, a solo piano and every formation in-between. Experience has given him an ease and maturity that allows his creativity to find the musical heart and vocabulary of intimate and epic films, as well as concert pieces and songs. At an age when many composers are just beginning to find their stride, Cliff Eidelman soars while exploring the subtle nuances and bold expanses of his musical gifts.
Easy Listening: Orchestral