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.

North

North is a noun, adjective, or adverb indicating direction or geography. North is one of the four cardinal directions or compass points. It is the opposite of south and is perpendicular to east and west.

Etymology

The word north is related to the Old High German nord, both descending from the Proto-Indo-European unit ner-, meaning "down" (or "under"). (Presumably a natural primitive description of its concept is "to the left of the rising sun".)

The Latin word borealis comes from the Greek boreas "north wind, north", which, according to Ovid, was personified as the son of the river-god Strymon, the father of Calais and Zetes. Septentrionalis is from septentriones, "the seven plow oxen", a name of Ursa Maior. The Greek arktikos is named for the same constellation, and is the derivation of the English word "Arctic".

Other languages have sometimes more interesting derivations. For example, in Lezgian, kefer can mean both 'disbelief' and 'north', since to the north of the Muslim Lezgian homeland there are areas formerly inhabited by non-Muslim Caucasian and Turkic peoples. In many languages of Mesoamerica, "north" also means "up". In Hungarian the word for north is észak, which is derived from éjszaka ("night"), since above the Tropic of Cancer, the Sun never shines from the north.

Alex

Alex is a common name used in multiple languages. In English, it is usually a diminutive of the male given name Alexander, or its female equivalent Alexandra or Alexandria. Aleck or Alec is the Scottish form of Alex. The East European male name Alexey (Aleksei, Alexis, Aleksa) is also sometimes shortened to Alex. It is a commonly used nickname in Spanish for Alejandro, Alexandro, Alejandrino and Alexandrino, and related names like Alexa and Alexis.

People whose first name is Alex

From Hell

From Hell is a graphic novel by writer Alan Moore and artist Eddie Campbell, originally published in serial form from 1989 to 1996 and collected in 1999, speculating upon the identity and motives of Jack the Ripper. The title is taken from the first words of the "From Hell" letter, which some authorities believe was an authentic message sent from the killer in 1888. The collected edition is 572 pages long. The 2000 and later editions are the most common prints. The comic was loosely adapted into a film of the same title, released in 2001.

About the book

From Hell was originally serialized as one of several features in Taboo, an anthology comic book published by Steve Bissette's Spiderbaby Grafix. After running in Taboo #2–7 (1989–1992), Moore and Campbell moved the project to its own series, published first by Tundra Publishing, then by Kitchen Sink Press. The series was published in ten volumes between 1991 and 1996, and an appendix, From Hell: The Dance of the Gull-catchers, was published in 1998. The entire series was collected in a trade paperback and published by Eddie Campbell Comics in 1999; trade paperback and hardcover versions are now published by Top Shelf Productions in the USA and Knockabout Comics in the UK.

Two Steps from Hell

Two Steps from Hell is an American production music company based in Los Angeles, California, founded by Thomas J. Bergersen and Nick Phoenix in 2006. The company focuses predominantly on movie and trailer music, and has supplied tracks to films such as Harry Potter, Pirates of the Caribbean, and X-Men.

History

Two Steps from Hell was founded in 2006 when Thomas Bergersen and Nick Phoenix joined forces to write original music for movie trailers. Bergersen moved from Trondheim, Norway to the United States in 2003, along with Phoenix, who began composing in 1997, before moving to Los Angeles. The two formed the company in early 2006, and have composed music for over 1,000 major motion picture trailers.

Founding and initial success (2006-10)

Two Steps from Hell mainly produces trailer music, although recently it has also been used for television shows and selected video games.

Despite the company finding success for its music, the tracks were never officially released to the public until the May 2010 release of the commercial album Invincible. In addition to approaching Gold record status, Invincible became the first of several such albums to chart in the iTunes Top 100 Soundtracks. As of July 2014, Two Steps from Hell has published 8 public albums in addition to 20 demonstration albums, with almost 1,000 unique tracks in total.