Michael Small
Michael Lewis Small ( * May 30, 1939 in New York City; † 24 November 2003 in Manhattan, New York City ) was an American composer. A wide audience, he is known for his film scores; In his more than three decades career he set over 50 film and television productions, often Thriller known Hollywood directors.
Life
Michael Small was born in 1939 in New York. His father, Jack Small, was an actor and worked in the 1950s as Managing Director for the traditional theater production company Shubert Organization. Small grew up in Maplewood (New Jersey) and was due to the activity of the father with the early theater in contact. He took piano lessons as a child, graduated at the insistence of his father, but a solid education as an English teacher from that led him in the late 1950s to the Williams College and Harvard University (participation in a one-year Master's program ).
Even as a college student wrote Small own musical compositions for comedy shows. There, he worked together with Charles Webb, later the author of the original novel for the successful feature film The Graduate (1967). By the relations of his father, Small came to an invitation by Lehman Engel, who brought him into the BMI Musical Theater Workshop for composers and lyricist. Private Small took lessons with Meyer Kupferman, a professor at Sarah Lawrence College. Then he began to write the music for commercials.
As a film composer began the self-taught from the late 1960s with Paul Williams dramedy Out of it ( 1969) to appear after the film producer Edward R. Pressman had discovered his work. By 2002, Small created the music for more than 50 film and television productions. He achieved fame for his work on thrillers, including Alan J. Pakula's Oscar - winning film Klute (1971) and The Parallax View (1974 ) or John Schlesinger's Marathon Man (1976). A long-term cooperation with the Association Small film director Bob Rafelson, whose directorial work The Postman Always Rings Twice (1981 ), The Black Widow (1987 ), Mountains of the Moon ( 1990), and Poodle Springs (1998) he set. Rafelson especially appreciate Smalls talent to create romantic melodies. To his favorite work of the director included the soundtrack to Mountains of the Moon. Smalls professional colleague and student of Canadians Chris Dedrick, titled The Americans as a "masterpiece of paranoia."
In addition to commercials and feature films Small also wrote music for documentary films, including Pumping Iron (1977 ), in which Arnold Schwarzenegger appeared as a bodybuilder and gained notoriety.
Michael Small was since the year 1961 until his death in 2003 with his wife Lynn ( Birth Name: Goldberg ) married, he had met during a theater performance in college. From this connection had two sons. Small died at the age of 64 from prostate cancer, two days before the death of his mentor Meyer Kupferman.