The Latin Library is a website that collects public domain Latin texts. The texts have been drawn from different sources. Many were originally scanned and formatted from texts in the Public Domain. Others have been downloaded from various sites on the Internet (many of which have long since disappeared). Most of the recent texts have been submitted by contributors around the world. The texts are not intended for research purposes nor as substitutes for critical editions. There are no translations at the site.

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Latin literature

External links

The Latin Library homepage.

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Coordinates	3°8′51″N101°41′36″N
Name	Oscar Niemeyer
Nationality	Brazilian
Religion	Atheism
Birth date	December 15, 1907
Birth place	Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Spouse(s)	Annita Baldo (1928-2004, 1 child) Vera Lucia Cabreira (2006-present)
Significant buildings	Edifício Copan National Congress of Brazil
Significant projects	United Nations headquarters City of Brasília
Significant design	Cathedral of Brasília
Awards	1988 Pritzker Prize }}

Oscar Ribeiro de Almeida Niemeyer Soares Filho (born December 15, 1907) is a Brazilian architect specializing in international modern architecture. He is a pioneer in exploring the formal possibilities of reinforced concrete solely for their aesthetic impact.

His buildings are often characterized by being spacious and exposed, mixing volumes and empty space to create unconventional patterns and often propped up by pilotis. Both lauded and criticized for being a ''"sculptor of monuments"'', he has been praised for being a great artist and one of the greatest architects of his generation by his supporters. His works include public buildings designed for the city of Brasília, and the United Nations Headquarters in New York City (with others).

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Early life

Oscar Niemeyer took his German surname from a grandmother with roots in Hannover. He was born in the city of Rio de Janeiro in 1907 in Laranjeiras neighborhood, on a street that later would receive the name of his grandfather. He spent his youth as a typical young Carioca of the time: bohemian and relatively unconcerned with his future. He concluded his secondary education at age 21. The same year, he married Annita Baldo, daughter of Italian immigrants from Padua. They have one daughter, Ana Maria, five grandchildren, thirteen great-grandchildren and seven great-great grandchildren.

He started to work in his father's typography house and entered the Escola de Belas Artes (Brazil), from which he graduated as engineer architect in 1934. At the time he had financial difficulties but decided to work without payment in the architecture studio of Lúcio Costa and Carlos Leão. He felt dissatisfied with the architecture that he saw in the streets and believed he could find a career there.

In 1945, he joined the Brazilian Communist Party, and in 1992 he would become president of that party. Niemeyer was a boy at the time of the Russian Revolution of 1917, and by the Second World War he became a young idealist. During the military dictatorship of Brazil his office was raided and he was forced into exile in Europe. The Minister of Aeronautics of the time reportedly said that "the place for a communist architect is Moscow." He visited the USSR, met with diverse socialist leaders and became a personal friend of some of them. Fidel Castro once said: "Niemeyer and I are the last Communists of this planet."

First works

In 1936, at 29, Lúcio Costa was appointed by Education Minister Gustavo Capanema as the architect of the new headquarters for the Ministry of Education and Public Health in Rio de Janeiro. In 1939, Niemeyer assumed the leadership of the team of architects (Lúcio Costa, Carlos Leão, Affonso Eduardo Reidy, Jorge Moreira, Ernani Vasconcellos and Niemeyer, with Le Corbusier acting as a consultant) responsible for the Ministry that had assumed the task of shaping the ‘novo homem, Brasileiro e moderno’ (new man, Brazilian and modern).

Following Niemeyer's request, the headquarters were renamed Palácio Gustavo Capanema in 1985. It was the first state-sponsored modernist skyscraper in the world, and of a much larger scale than anything Le Corbusier had built until then. Completed in 1943, when he was 36, the building which housed the regulator and manager of Brazilian culture and cultural heritage developed the elements of what was to become recognized as Brazilian modernism. It employed local materials and techniques, like the azulejos linked to the Portuguese tradition; the revolutionized Corbusian brises-soleil, made adjustable and related to the Moorish shading devices of colonial architecture; bold colors; the tropical gardens of Roberto Burle Marx; the Imperial Palm (''Roystonea oleracea''), known as the Brazilian order; further allusions to the icons of the Brazilian landscape; and specially commissioned works by Brazilian artists.

In 1939, at 32, Niemeyer with Lúcio Costa designed the Brazilian pavilion at the New York World's Fair (executed in collaboration with Paul Lester Wiener). Impressed by the executed Pavilion, Mayor Fiorello La Guardia awarded Niemeyer the keys to the city of New York. Costa explained that the Brazilian Pavilion adopted a language of ‘grace and elegance’, lightness and spatial fluidity, open plan, curves and free walls, which he termed ‘Ionic’, contrasting it to the contemporaneous stern Modernist architecture, which he termed ‘Doric’. By mid-twentieth century, Brazilian architectural Modernism had been recognized as the first national style in modern architecture by Reyner Banham. The international architectural periodicals of the 1940s and 1950s dedicated hundreds of dithyrambic pages to the ‘chosen land of the most original and most audacious contemporary architecture’, followed by monographs on individual architects like Niemeyer and Affonso Eduardo Reidy.

The Pampulha project

In 1940, at 33, Niemeyer met Juscelino Kubitschek, who was at the time the mayor of Belo Horizonte, capital of the state of Minas Gerais. He and Minas Gerais Governor Benedito Valadares wanted to develop a new suburb to the north of the city called Pampulha, and commissioned Niemeyer to design a series of buildings to be known as the "Pampulha complex". Brazil’s first listed modern monument was Niemeyer’s Pampulha Church of São Francisco de Assis (). The Pampulha complex included a casino, a dance hall and restaurant, a yacht club, and a golf club distributed around the artificial lake. A weekend retreat for the mayor was also constructed near the lake.

The buildings were completed in 1943, and provoked some controversy. They received international acclaim following the 1943 ‘Brazil Builds’ exhibition, at the New York Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). The conservative Church authorities of Minas Gerais refused to consecrate the church until 1959, in part because of its unorthodox form, in part because of the altar mural painted by Candido Portinari. The mural depicts Saint Francis of Assisi as the savior of the ill, the poor and, most importantly, the sinner.

Pampulha, says Niemeyer, offered him the opportunity to 'challenge the monotony of contemporary architecture, the wave of misinterpreted functionalism that hindered it, and the dogmas of form and function that had emerged, counteracting the plastic freedom that reinforced concrete introduced. I was attracted by the curve – the liberated, sensual curve suggested by the possibilities of new technology yet so often recalled in venerable old baroque churches. […] I deliberately disregarded the right angle and rationalist architecture designed with ruler and square to boldly enter the world of curves and straight lines offered by reinforced concrete. […] This deliberate protest arose from the environment in which I lived, with its white beaches, its huge mountains, its old baroque churches, and the beautiful suntanned women.'

The 1940s and 1950s

In 1947, at 40, his worldwide recognition was confirmed when Niemeyer traveled to the United States to be part of the international team working on the design for the headquarters of the United Nations in New York. Niemeyer's 'scheme 32' was approved by the Board of Design, but he eventually gave in to pressure by Le Corbusier, and together they submitted project 23/32 (developed with Bodiansky and Weissmann), which combined elements from Niemeyer's and Le Corbusier's schemes, but was primarily based on Niemeyer's scheme. Despite Le Corbusier’s insistence to remain involved, the conceptual design for the United Nations Headquarters (scheme 23/32), approved by the Board, was carried forward by the Director of Planning, Wallace Harrison, and Max Abramovitz, then a partnership. In the previous year Niemeyer had received an invitation to teach at Yale University; however, his visa was denied. In 1950 the first book about his work was published in the USA by Stamo Papadaki. In 1953, at 46, Niemeyer was selected for the position of dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Design. His Communist Party membership meant that, for the second time, he was refused a visa to enter the United States.

In Brazil, he designed São Paulo's Ibirapuera Park (for the celebrations of the city's 400th anniversary) 1951, the Copan apartment building (1953–66), and the JK Building in Belo Horizonte (1951). In 1952-53, he built his own house in Rio de Janeiro, the House at Canoas (''Casa das Canoas''), and, in 1954-60, the Niemeyer luxury apartment building in Belo Horizonte. In 1955, at 48, Niemeyer designed the Museum of Modern Art of Caracas (MAM Caracas). According to him, this project marked a new direction his work was beginning to take, exemplified by his government buildings for Brasilia.

It was at the Canoas House that Juscelino Kubitschek visited Niemeyer one September morning of 1956, soon after he assumed the Brazilian presidency. While driving back to the city, the politician ‘eagerly’ spoke to the architect about his most audacious scheme: ‘I am going to build a new capital for this country and I want you to help me […] Oscar, this time we are going to build the capital of Brazil.’

Niemeyer organized a competition for the lay-out of Brasília, the new capital, and the winner was the project of his old master and great friend, Lúcio Costa. Niemeyer would design the buildings, Lucio the plan of the city.

In the space of a few months, Niemeyer designed a large number of residential, commercial and government buildings. Among them were the residence of the President (''Palácio da Alvorada''), the House of the deputy, the National Congress of Brazil, the Cathedral of Brasília (a hyperboloid structure), diverse ministries, and residential buildings. Viewed from above, the city can be seen to have elements that repeat themselves in every building, giving it a formal unity.

Behind the construction of Brasília lay a monumental campaign to construct an entire city in the barren center of the country, hundreds of kilometers from any major city. The brainchild of Kubitschek, Niemeyer had as aims included stimulating the national industry, integrating the country's distant areas, populating inhospitable regions, and bringing progress to a region where only cattle ranching had a foothold. Niemeyer and Lúcio Costa used it to test new concepts of city planning: streets without transit, buildings floating off the ground supported by columns and allowing the space underneath to be free and integrated with nature.

The project also had a socialist ideology: in Brasília all the apartments would be owned by the government and rented to its employees. Brasília did not have "nobler" regions, meaning that top ministers and common laborers would share the same building. Of course, many of these concepts were ignored or changed by other presidents with different visions in later years. Brasília was designed, constructed, and inaugurated within four years. After its completion, Niemeyer was nominated head chief of the college of architecture of the University of Brasília. In 1963, he became an honorary member of the American Institute of Architects in the United States; the same year, he received the Lenin Peace Prize from the USSR.

Niemeyer and his contribution to the construction of Brasília are portrayed in the 1964 French movie ''L'homme de Rio'' (''The Man From Rio''), starring Jean-Paul Belmondo.

In 1964, at 57, after being invited by Abba Hushi, the mayor of Haifa, Israel, to plan the campus of the University of Haifa, he came back to a completely different Brazil. In March President João Goulart, who succeeded President Jânio Quadros in 1961, was deposed in a military coup. General Castello Branco assumed command of the country, which would remain a dictatorship until 1985.

Exile and projects overseas

The leftist position of Niemeyer (he was a staunch stalinist) cost him much during the military dictatorship. His office was pillaged, the headquarters of the magazine he coordinated was destroyed, his projects mysteriously began to be refused and clients disappeared. In 1965, two hundred professors, Niemeyer among them, asked for their resignation from the University of Brasília, in protest against the government treatment of universities. In the same year he traveled to France for an exhibition in the Louvre museum.

The following year, Niemeyer moved to Paris. Also in 1966, at 59, he travelled to the city of Tripoli, Lebanon to design the International Permanent Exhibition Centre. Despite completing construction, the start of the civil war in Lebanon prevented it from achieving its full utility.

He opened an office on the Champs-Élysées, and had customers in diverse countries, especially in Algeria where he designed the University of Science and Technology-Houari Boumediene. In Paris he created the headquarters of the French Communist Party (photos), Place du Colonel Fabien, and in Italy that of the Mondadori publishing company. In Funchal on Madeira, a 19^th-century hotel was removed to build a casino by Niemeyer. Another prominent design of his was the Penang State Mosque in George Town the state capital of Penang, Malaysia in the 1970s.

While in Paris, Niemeyer began designing furniture which was produced by Mobilier International. He created an easy chair and ottoman composed of bent steel and leather in limited numbers for private clients. Later, in 1978, this chair and other designs including the "Rio" chaise-longue were produced in Brazil by the Japanese company Tendo, then Tendo Brasileira. The easy chairs and ottomans were made of bent wood and were placed in different Communist party headquarters around the world. Much like his architecture, Niemeyer's furniture designs were meant to evoke the beauty of Brazil, with curves mimicking the female form and the hills of Rio de Janeiro.

1980s to 2000

In 1988, at 81, Niemeyer was awarded the Pritzker Architecture Prize, the most prestigious award in architecture, for the Cathedral of Brasília (1958).

From 1992 to 1996, Niemeyer was the president of the Brazilian Communist Party (PCB). As a lifelong activist, Niemeyer was chosen as a powerful public figure that could be linked to the party at a time when it appeared to be in its death throes after the demise of the USSR. Although not active as a political leader, his image helped the party to survive through its crisis, after the 1992 split and to remain as a political force in the national scene, which eventually led to its reconstruction. He was replaced by Zuleide Faria de Mello in 1996.

He designed at least two more buildings in Brasilia, small ones, the Memorial dos Povos Indigenas ("Memorial for the Indigenous People") and the Catedral Militar, Igreja de N.S. da Paz.

In 1996, at the age of 89, he created the Niterói Contemporary Art Museum in Niterói, a city next to Rio de Janeiro. The building is cantilevered out from sheer rock face, giving a view of the Guanabara Bay and the city of Rio de Janeiro.

2002 to present

The Brazilian dictatorship lasted until 1985. Under João Figueiredo's rule it softened and gradually turned into a democracy. At this time Niemeyer decided to return to his country. During that decade he made the Memorial Juscelino Kubitschek (1980), the Pantheon (''Panteão da Pátria e da Liberdade Tancredo Neves'' Pantheon of the Fatherland and Freedom, 1985) and the Latin America Memorial (1987) (dubbed by The Independent of London to be "...an incoherent and vulgar construction"). The memorial sculpture represents the wounded hand of Jesus, whose wound bleeds in the shape of Central and South America.

In 2002, at 95 the Oscar Niemeyer Museum complex was inaugurated in the city of Curitiba, Paraná. The building is locally known as "Niemeyer's Eye".

In 2003, at 96, Niemeyer was called to design the Serpentine Gallery Summer Pavilion in Hyde Park London, a gallery that each year invites a famous architect who has never previously built in the UK, to design this temporary structure. A publication of Niemeyer's structure called ''Serpentine Gallery Pavilion 2003'' was published by Trolley Books later that year, ISBN 9781904563136.

In 2004, Niemeyer, at 97 designed the tombstone for Communist Carlos Marighella in Salvador da Bahia, to commemorate the 35th anniversary of his death. He was widowed after 76 years of marriage to Annita, Annita died at 93 years old. Also his brother Paulo Niemeyer died.

In 2005, at 98, a building entitled "Estação, Ciência, Cultura e Artes" (Science, Culture and Arts Station) was approved for construction at João Pessoa, the easternmost point of the Americas.

In 2006, Niemeyer at the age of 99 wed longtime aide Vera Lucia Cabreira. They married at his apartment in Rio de Janeiro's Ipanema district a month after fracturing his hip in a fall.

2007 saw Niemeyer turn 100 and still involved in diverse projects, mainly sculptures and readjustments of old works of his that, protected by national (and some cases international) historic heritage regulations, can only be modified by him. He is currently designing a statue showing a tiger with its mouth open and a man fighting it raising the Cuban flag against the US blockade of Cuba.On Niemeyer's 100th birthday, Russia's president Vladimir Putin awarded him the Order of Friendship. Grateful for the ''Prince of Asturias Award of Arts'' received in 1989, he collaborated on the 25th anniversary of these awards with the donation to Asturias of the design of a cultural centre. The actual ''Óscar Niemeyer International Cultural Centre'' (also known in Spain as Centro Niemeyer), is located in Avilés (Asturias) in Northern Spain. These modern buildings were described by himself as “a big square open to all men and women of the world, a big loge between the river and the ancient town". The Niemeyer Center was inaugurated during the spring of 2011.

In December 2008 he turned 101 Niemeyer was recovering in hospital from December 16th to December 27th, and while there he quoted saying as that being hospitalized is 'a very lonely thing I needed to keep busy, keep in touch with friends, maintain my rhythm of life.'

In December 2009 after he turned 102 Niemeyer was hospitalized for 4 days in the same hospital with an intestinal tumor, which was surgically removed. He is considered to be one of the fathers of modern architecture, remains professionally active and is currently working on several new projects.

In December 2010 he turned 103 by opening a museum of his work. The Oscar Niemeyer Foundation outside Rio de Janeiro houses drawings and models from the modernist architect's 70-year career. "My friends have come to see me, how nice," Mr Niemeyer told reporters at the inauguration of his foundation in the city of Niteroi, outside Rio de Janeiro.

The Holoteca, a library specialized on consciousness and the paranormal, in the Cognopolis neighborhood of Iguassu Falls is one of his latest projects.

Criticism

Nicolai Ouroussoff, the architecture critic of the ''New York Times'' published an article questioning if his recent work is being affected by old age. He considers the "Niterói Contemporary Art Museum" to be of significantly lower quality than his previous works. Most notably, he argues that "the greatest threat to Mr. Niemeyer’s remarkable legacy may not be the developer’s bulldozer or insensitive city planners, but Mr. Niemeyer himself." He considers iconic works at "Esplanada dos Ministérios" to "have been marred by the architect’s own hand".

See also

List of Oscar Niemeyer works

References

A Vida É Um Sopro ''"Life Is A Breath Of Air"'' (2007). Documentary directed by Fabiano Maciel

External links

Official website

List and Locations of Oscar Niemeyer buildings around the world

May 2006 Interview with Niemeyer, age 98, in Metropolis Magazine

Niemeyer in Brasília history

Niemeyer rosewood easy chair and ottoman at Noho Modern

Contemporary Art Museum Niteroi.

Tripoli International Fair by Oscar Niemeyer, 360 Panorama by Melkan Bassil

Oscar Niemeyer's Strick House in Santa Monica

JK Building, Belo Horizonte, Brazil

Pritzker Prize 1988

Images of The Museum of Contemporary Art, Niteroi, Cathedral of Brasilia, and Memorial dos Povos Indigenas (Memorial for the Indigenous People)

Oscar Niemeyer group on Flickr

Mondadori Headquarters

Niemeyer's Brasilia: A Photographic Tribute (2009)

Swerve with verve: Oscar Niemeyer, the architect who eradicated the straight line by Peter Godfrey in The Independent 18 April 2010

Category:Brazilian architects Category:Ecclesiastical architects Category:Brazilian centenarians Category:Brazilian socialists Category:Brazilian communists Category:Brazilian atheists Category:Anti-Revisionists Category:Brazilian Order of Scientific Merit recipients Category:International style architecture Category:Modernist architects Category:20th-century architects Category:21st-century architects Category:Pritzker Prize winners Category:Lenin Peace Prize recipients Category:Orden de las Artes y las Letras de España recipients Category:People from Rio de Janeiro (city) Category:Brazilian people of German descent Category:1907 births Category:Living people Category:Recipients of the Royal Gold Medal Category:Architects of cathedrals Category:Recipients of the Order of Friendship

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Coordinates	3°8′51″N101°41′36″N
name	Daniel Alarcón
birth date	1977
birth place	Lima, Peru
nationality	Peru, United States
website	http://danielalarcon.com/ http://radioambulante.org }}

Daniel Alarcón (born 1977 in Lima, Peru) is an author who lives in Oakland, California; he has been a the Distinguished Visiting Writer at Mills College and a Visiting Writer at California College of the Arts. He is currently a Visiting Scholar at UC Berkeley Center for Latin American Studies.

Daniel Alarcón’s work has been published in ''The New Yorker'', ''Harper's'', ''Granta'', ''Virginia Quarterly Review'' and elsewhere, and anthologized in ''Best American Non-Required Reading 2004'' and ''2005''. He is Associate Editor of the Peruvian magazine ''Etiqueta Negra'', and he edited a portfolio for the magazine ''A Public Space'' on the writing of Peru in 2007. He is a former Fulbright Scholar to Peru, and a 2011 Artist in Residence at the Headlands Center for the Arts.

Alarcón, a native of Peru, was raised, from the age of 3, in Birmingham, Alabama, U.S., and is an alumnus of Indian Springs School. He earned a bachelor's degree in anthropology from Columbia University and a master's from the Iowa Writers' Workshop. He has studied in Ghana and taught in New York City.

His first book, ''War by Candlelight'', was a finalist for the 2006 PEN/Hemingway Foundation Award. In 2008, he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Lannan Fellowship, named a "Best Young American Novelist" by ''Granta'' magazine, and one of 39 under 39 Latin American Novelists.. In 2010, he was also recognized by the ''New Yorker'' as one of 20 promising writers under 40.

Alarcón's debut novel, ''Lost City Radio'', was published 2007, and has been translated into Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Dutch, Greek, and is forthcoming in Italian, Serbian, Turkish, and Japanese. The German translation of ''Lost City Radio'' by Friedericke Meltendorf received the International Literature Award from the Haus der Kulturen der Welt. In 2009, he published a collection of short stories, ''El rey está siempre por encima del pueblo'' (''The king is always above the people''), and the following year, "Ciudad de payasos", a graphic novel adapted from his 2003 story ''City of Clowns'', with illustrations by Peruvian artist Sheila Alvarado.

In 2011, with partners Carolina Guerrero and Annie Correal, he founded Radio Ambulante, a Spanish language podcast telling Latin American stories.

Bibliography

''War by Candlelight: Stories'' (2005) ISBN 0060594780 (hdbk), ISBN 0060594802 (pbbk). Translated to Spanish by Rayo: Guerra en la Penumbra in 2005 and by Alfaguara: Guerra à la Luz de las Velas 2006

"What kind of Latino am I?", ''Salon.com'' May 24, 2005

, ''Harper's Magazine'' September 2006

''Lost City Radio'' (2007) ISBN 0060594799. Translated to Spanish: Radio Ciudad Perdida, Alfaguara, 2007.

''Zoetrope All Story: The Latin American Issue". A compilation of stories by Latin American writers. Co-edited with Diego Trelles Paz. Spring 2009

'' El Rey siempre está por encima del pueblo'' Editorial Sexto Piso, Mexico City, Mexico, 2009. Published also in Lima Peru by Editorial Seix Barral, Planeta, 2009

''Payasos''. Film adaptation of "City of Clowns", a story which first appeared in The New Yorker in 2003. Lima, Peru, 2009.

Awards

Recipient of the Whiting Writers' Award in 2004 for fiction

Recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship 2007

One of 21 Young American Novelists Granta, UK, 2007)

One of 39 under 39 Latino American Novelists (Hay Festival, Bogota, Colombia, 2007)

One of 7 finalists for the Sargent Sr. First Novel Prize, Mercantile Library For Fiction, 2007

Recipient of a Lannan Literary Fellowship in 2007

One of 37 under 36 selected by the ''Smithsonian Magazine'' (Fall Special Issue, 2007) as Young American Innovators in the Arts and Sciences

''Lost City Radio'' has made the lists of best fiction for 2007 of the ''Washington Post'', ''Booklist'', ''The Christian Science Monitor'', ''The Chicago Tribune'', The Los Angeles Times and ''The Financial Times'' (London).

Alabama Library Association Award for Fiction, Birmingham, Alabama, 2008

2008 Pen USA award for Lost City Radio, Los Angeles, CA

2009 International Literature Award – House of World Cultures (Berlin, Germany)

The "Idiot President" has been selected for the best short stories and a narrative about describing his traveling in Palestine for the best travel stories. Both in 2009.

External links

'Life Among the Pirates', Daniel Alarcón's essay on the book piracy trade in Peru, printed in ''Granta'': 'Work', in January 2010.

Daniel Alarcón website

Hernandez, Daniel (2007). "Between the Lost and the Found: Daniel Alarcón and his novel of the disappeared", ''LA Weekly'' interview with Mr. Alarcon, March 22, 2007.

Fay, Sarah (2007). "Missing," review of ''Lost City Radio'' from the New York Times, March 25, 2007.

Category:American short story writers Category:Living people Category:1977 births Category:American people of Peruvian descent Category:People from Birmingham, Alabama Category:Guggenheim Fellows Category:Iowa Writers' Workshop alumni

de:Daniel Alarcón es:Daniel Alarcón fr:Daniel Alarcón

Coordinates	3°8′51″N101°41′36″N
name	Tony Hatch
background	non_vocal_instrumentalist
birth name	Anthony Peter Hatch
alias	Fred Nightingale, Mark Anthony
birth date	June 30, 1939
origin	Pinner, Middlesex
instrument	Keyboards
occupation	Composer, songwriter, pianist, music arranger, producer
years active	1960s–present
website	www.tonyhatch.com
notable instruments	}}

Tony Hatch (born 30 June 1939) is an English composer, songwriter, pianist, music arranger, and producer.

Early life and early career

He was born Anthony Peter Hatch in Pinner, North London. Encouraged by his musical abilities, his mother – also a pianist – enrolled him in the London Choir School in Wansunt Road, Bexley, Kent when he was ten. Instead of continuing at the Royal Academy of Music, he left school in 1955 and found a job with Robert Mellin Music in London's Tin Pan Alley.

Before long, he was writing songs and making a name for himself within the recording industry, joining The Rank Organisation's new subsidiary Top Rank Records; there he worked for the once and future Decca Records A&R; man Dick Rowe. While he served his National Service, he managed to become involved with the band of the Coldstream Guards. On his return in 1959, Hatch began his own recording career with a cover version of Russ Conway's piano instrumental "Side Saddle". In 1960, Garry Mills' (trumpeter Nat Gonella's nephew) recording of Hatch's composition ''Look For A Star'', featured in the hit film ''Circus of Horrors'', became a Top Ten hit in the UK for Top Rank. Four versions of the song charted simultaneously in the United States, including Mills' original and a version by "Garry Miles" (a recording alias of future member of The Crickets, Buzz Cason) Top Rank, despite some worldwide success with artists such as Jack Scott and The Fireballs, ultimately was done in by a quirky distribution arrangement with EMI. A swift succession of events ensued through 1961-Top Rank was sold to EMI, briefly operated as a subsidiary, with hits by John Leyton, and shuttered, with its artist roster transferred to other EMI labels. Hatch moved on to a part-time job with Pye Records, where he assisted his new mentor, Alan A. Freeman, with the recording of "Sailor", a number 1 hit for Petula Clark.

Hatch continued to write songs for Pye artists, sometimes under the pseudonym "Mark Anthony". In 1963, Philadelphia teen idol Bobby Rydell hit the charts with "Forget Him" written and produced by Hatch, who went on to produce, arrange and write for other American stars such as Keely Smith, Connie Francis and Pat Boone. In 1964 he wrote (under the pseudonym of "Fred Nightingale") the Searchers' hit "Sugar and Spice".

While at Pye, he produced many of their artists; The Searchers, David Bowie, and The Montanas, among others.

Collaboration with Petula Clark

After "Valentino", the first Tony Hatch composition to be recorded by Petula Clark, he became her regular producer. They collaborated on a series of French language recordings for Vogue Records. (Clark, whose husband was French and who spoke the language fluently, had a successful career throughout Europe.) Hatch became one of her regular songwriting partners, in addition to supplying English lyrics for songs she had composed with French lyricists.

In 1964, Hatch made his first trip to New York City in search of new material for Clark. The visit inspired him to write "Downtown", originally with The Drifters in mind. When Clark heard the still unfinished tune, she told him that if he could write lyrics to match the quality of the music, she would record the song as her next single. Its release transformed her into a huge international star, topping charts globally early in 1965, and introducing her to the US market. The year also yielded the remarkable series of hits "I Know A Place", "You'd Better Come Home", and "Round Every Corner" for Clark. She and Hatch wrote "You're The One", which became a major hit for The Vogues. Tony Hatch and Petula Clark became established as the British equivalent of Burt Bacharach and Dionne Warwick.

1965 marked the release of his first album, ''The Downtown Sound of Tony Hatch'', featuring instrumental versions of some of his most famous songs, along with new compositions.

The song "Call Me", written for and recorded by Petula Clark in 1965, was recorded by Chris Montez late in the year. Released in November 1965, Montez's version entered the US Easy Listening Top 40 in Billboard that December, entering the US Billboard Hot 100 in January 1966; that March "Call Me" peaked on the Easy Listening chart at #2 and on the Hot 100 at #22.

Petula Clark's run of hits continued with "My Love", "A Sign Of The Times", "Who Am I?", "Colour My World", and "I Couldn't Live Without Your Love". Hatch also wrote Clark's 1967 hits "Don't Sleep In The Subway" and "The Other Man's Grass Is Always Greener".

Collaboration and life with Jackie Trent

In 1964, Hatch was hired to write his first television theme, for the soap opera ''Crossroads''. It would become one of his best-known compositions, and have the distinction of being re-worked by Paul McCartney and Wings. When asked to write a song to be featured in the Inspector Rose series, ''It's Dark Outside'', he supplied "Where Are You Now?", with lyrics and vocals by a recently acquired Pye artist, Jackie Trent. The song immediately clicked with the public and shot to number 1 in the charts.

Though still married to his first wife, Hatch began an affair with Jackie Trent, who had become a frequent songwriting collaborator. This ongoing affair was the inspiration for the song "I Couldn't Live Without Your Love".

Hatch and Trent were married in 1966. Their duet, "The Two Of Us", topped the Australian charts and created a demand for concert and cabaret performances, and the duo earned the nickname, "Mr & Mrs Music". His compositions for ''Sportsnight'', ''The Doctors'', ''Codename'', ''Back to the Land'', ''The Champions'', ''Hadleigh'', ''Mr and Mrs'' and ''Whodunnit!'' established Hatch as a composer of television theme tunes.

The couple also wrote the song "Joanna", a hit for Scott Walker. One of their more unusual collaborations was the song "We'll be with you" written for Stoke City Football Club in the club's successful run for the League Cup in 1972. The song is still sung by fans as the team run out on matchdays.

During the 1970s, Hatch and Trent diversified into musical theatre. Their first project, ''The Card'', based on Arnold Bennett's novel, with book by Keith Waterhouse and Willis Hall, ran in London's West End with Jim Dale and Millicent Martin in the lead roles. (Coincidentally, Petula Clark had starred in the 1952 film version with Alec Guinness.) An original cast album was released in 1975. A rewritten version of the show, starring Peter Duncan and Hayley Mills, played the Regent's Park Open Air Theatre in the 1990s and spawned a new cast album. The second Hatch/Trent musical was ''Rock Nativity'', with book and lyrics by David Wood. Initiated and produced by Cameron Mackintosh, it first played in Newcastle. An updated version of the show toured nationally in 1976 and was broadcast nationally by Scottish TV. A full-length concert version was recorded at the Cork Opera House for the Irish television state broadcaster RTE. In 1972, he composed the original theme to ''Emmerdale Farm''. During the 1970s Hatch was also a regular panellist on the talent show ''New Faces'' where his blunt style of assessing the contestants has proved to be a forerunner of approaches to come in later, similar series.

After completing the music score to the movie ''Sweeney 2'' in 1978, Hatch and Trent moved to Dublin, where they remained for four years, hosting their own TV series, ''Words And Music'' and ''It's A Musical World''. Hatch continued to produce hit TV themes for series such as ''Seagull Island'' and ''Airline'' before moving to Australia in 1982. While there, the couple wrote one of their most famous compositions, the theme for the TV soap opera ''Neighbours''. They separated in 1995, and divorced in 2002.

Other recent events

Hatch made a guest appearance on Graham Fellows's radio show, ''The Shuttleworths'' in 1994.

In 2003, a disco remix of the original recording of ''Downtown'' was released in Australia by The OUTpsiDER, with the blessing of both Hatch and Clark, and became a major hit. A souvenir CD box-set of six of Hatch's albums (four from the 60s and two from the 70s – including one with Jackie Trent), all in replicas of their original covers, was released in 2005.

In 2010 the song "Push A Little Button" written by Hatch, performed by his (then 15 year old) sister Ninette and released on the Pye Records label in 1966 was used as the soundtrack for a campaign by UK TV Licensing, promoting the availability of online methods of paying a UK TV licence (which funds the BBC).

Family life

Hatch has two daughters from his first marriage to Jean, a son and daughter from his marriage to Trent, and now lives in Menorca, Spain with his third wife, Maggie.

See also

:Category:Songs written by Tony Hatch

Reference

External links

Official website

Spectropop: Tony Hatch

Category:1939 births Category:Living people Category:English musical theatre composers Category:English television composers Category:English songwriters Category:English pianists Category:People from Pinner

de:Tony Hatch