Schifrin, Lalo (Boris)

Schifrin, Lalo (Boris), Argentine-American pianist, conductor, and composer; b. Buenos Aires, June 21, 1932. He studied music at home with his father, the concertmaster of the Teatro Colón orch.; subsequently studied harmony with Juan Carlos Paz; won a scholarship to the Paris Cons. in 1950, where he received guidance from Koechlin, and took courses with Messiaen. He became interested in jazz, and represented Argentina at the International Jazz Festival in Paris in 1955; returning to Buenos Aires, he formed his own jazz band, adopting the bebop style. In 1958 he went to N.Y., and later was pianist with Dizzy Gillespie’s band (1960–62); composed for it several exotic pieces, such as Manteca, Con Alma, and Tunisian Fantasy, based on Gillespie’s Night in Tunisia. In 1963 he wrote a ballet, Jazz Faust. In 1964 he went to Hollywood, where he rapidly found his métier as composer for the films and television; among his scores are The Liquidator (1966), Cool Hand Luke (1967), The Fox (1967), The Amityville Horror (1978), The Sting II (1983), and Bad Medicine (1985). He also experimented with applying the jazz idiom to religious texts, as, for instance, in his Jazz Suite on Mass Texts (1965). He achieved his greatest popular success with the theme-motto for the television series Mission: Impossible (1966–73), in 5/4 time, for which he received 2 Grammy awards. His adaptation of modern techniques into mass media placed him in the enviable position of being praised by professional musicians. His oratorio The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, featuring realistic excerpts and incorporating an actual recording of Hitler’s speech in electronic amplification, was brought out at the Hollywood Bowl on Aug. 3, 1967. His other works include a Suite for Trumpet and Brass Orch. (1961), The Ritual of Sound for 15 Instruments (1962), Pulsations for Electronic Keyboard, Jazz Band, and Orch. (Los Angeles, Jan. 21, 1971), Madrigals for the Space Age, in 10 parts, for Narrator and Chorus (Los Angeles, Jan. 15, 1976), Capriccio for Clarinet and Strings (Los Angeles, Nov. 5, 1981), Guitar Concerto (1984), Songs of the Aztecs for Soloist and Orch. (Teotihuacan, Mexico, Oct. 29, 1988), and 2 pianos concertos, including No. 2, Concerto of the Americas (Washington, D.C., June 11, 1992). He served as music director of the newly organized Paris Phil from 1988.

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire