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Jerome Moross
From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist
Jerome Moross was an American composer, best known for his film and television music. He was born in 1913 in Brooklyn, to Jewish parents, and became a fine pianist. He formed a lifelong friendship with Bernard Herrmann and in 1931 joined Aaron Copland's Young Composers Group. Herrmann introduced him to the media, beginning with music for radio programmes in 1935. In the 1940s he went to Hollywood, where from 1948 to 1969 he wrote the music for sixteen films.
Music and breakthrough
His best-known film score is the one for The Big Country from 1958, for which he received an Academy Award nomination. According to Moross, he wrote the main title after a memory of a walk across the plain near Albuquerque in 1936. Other films were The Proud Rebel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Cardinal and The Valley of Gwangi. He also wrote the main theme of the television western Wagon Train. For the theatre he made the musical The Golden Apple (1954), with the song Lazy Afternoon. As an orchestrator he often worked uncredited for others. His symphony was performed in 1943 by Thomas Beecham in Seattle.
Influence
His western music has an open, broad sound, with a rhythmic ostinato and syncopation, so that you hear the vast prairie. That sound became a model for the genre and influenced later film composers. Moross died in 1983.
Listening
Main Title · Jerome Moross, 1958
Discography
Studio albums
- 1963The Cardinal (soundtrack)
- 1965The War Lord (soundtrack)
- 1989Thompson: Symphony no. 2 / Moross: Frankie and Johnny / Dello Joio: Epigraph For Orchestra
- 1993Symphony no. 1 / The Last Judgement / Variations on a Waltz
- 1995The Big Country (soundtrack)
- 2000The Cardinal - The Classic Film Music Of Jerome Moross
- 2000The Proud Rebel (soundtrack)
- 2003National Geographic Presents: Yankee Sails Across Europe / Grizzly! (soundtrack)
- 2003The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (soundtrack)
- 2012The Jayhawkers (soundtrack)
- 2014Seven Wonders of the World (soundtrack)
- 2015The Golden Apple (First Full-Length Recording)
- 2018The Valley of Gwangi (soundtrack)
- ?The Golden Apple (1954 original Broadway cast) (soundtrack)
In School of Rock
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- The Dream Factory: Film Reel 2NL Reader
Mentioned in other articles
- Hollywood Western Genre
For The Big Country (1958), Jerome Moross wrote a broad theme with bouncing rhythms and the open sound of Copland.