Alex North

Alex North (December 4, 1910 – September 8, 1991) was an American composer best known for his many film scores, including A Streetcar Named Desire (one of the first jazz-based film scores), Viva Zapata!, Spartacus, Cleopatra, and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?. He was the first composer to receive an Honorary Academy Award.

Early life

North was born Isadore Soifer in Chester, Pennsylvania to Russian Jewish parents.

Career

North managed to integrate his modernism into typical film music leitmotif structure, rich with themes. One of these became the famous song, "Unchained Melody". Nominated for fifteen Oscars but unsuccessful each time, North is one of only two film composers to receive the Lifetime Achievement Academy Award, the other being Ennio Morricone. North's frequent collaborator as orchestrator was the avant-garde composer Henry Brant. He won the 1968 Golden Globe award for his music to The Shoes of the Fisherman (1968).

His best-known film scores include A Streetcar Named Desire, Death of a Salesman, Viva Zapata!, The Rainmaker, Spartacus, The Misfits, Cleopatra, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Dragonslayer and Under the Volcano. His music for The Wonderful Country makes use of Mexican and American motifs.

Eric Whitacre

Eric Whitacre (born January 2, 1970) is a Grammy-winning American composer, conductor and speaker, known for his choral, orchestral and wind ensemble music. He is also known for his "Virtual Choir" projects, bringing individual voices from around the globe together into an online choir.

Biography

Born in Reno, Nevada, Whitacre studied piano intermittently as a child and joined a junior high marching band under band leader Jim Burnett. Later he played synthesizer in a techno-pop band, dreaming of being a rock star. Though he was unable to read music at the time, Whitacre began his full musical training while an undergraduate at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, eventually taking a BM in Music Composition. Whitacre states that the first work that he sang, Mozart's Requiem, changed his life. He studied composition with Ukrainian composer Virko Baley and choral conducting with David Weiller, completing his BM in Music in 1995. Whitacre credits Weiller with the inspiration that put the young composer on the musical path. At 21 he wrote his setting of Go, Lovely Rose for his college choir and presented the composition as a gift to David Weiller. Whitacre went on to earn his Master's degree in composition at the Juilliard School, where he studied with John Corigliano and David Diamond. At the age of 23 he completed his first piece for Wind Orchestra, Ghost Train, which has now been recorded over 40 times. He acknowledges the great support of his mentor Tom Leslie in the development of composition for wind ensembles and in the writing of Ghost Train particularly. While at Juilliard he met his future wife, soprano Hila Plitmann, and two of his closest friends, composers Steven Bryant and Jonathan Newman. He lived in the state of Nevada until he was 25. He graduated in 1997 and moved to Los Angeles and following the success of Ghost Train, he decided to become a full-time professional composer.

Rob Cantor

Robert Howard "Rob" Cantor (born August 26, 1983) is an American singer-songwriter and creator of multiple viral videos. He is best known as the yellow-tied vocalist and guitarist of indie rock band Tally Hall.

Cantor is also known for his solo work as a comedy musician and viral video creator, particularly from the song "Shia LaBeouf", in which actor Shia LaBeouf is depicted as a cannibalistic serial killer. His other work has included a solo album titled Not a Trampoline, and another viral video, "29 Celebrity Impressions, 1 Original Song".

Early life

Cantor was born and raised in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. He attended Andover High School, where he met future Tally Hall member Zubin Sedghi and future collaborator Zach Krasman. In 2002, when attending University of Michigan, he formed Tally Hall with Sedghi and musician Andrew Horowitz. He majored in molecular biology, with a minor in nonprofessional music. He graduated in 2005, and turned down a full scholarship to medical school in order to pursue music full-time with Tally Hall.