Composer Leonard Rosenman died of a heart attack on 4 March 2008. Born 7 September 1924 in Brooklyn, New York, he won two Oscars and two Emmys.
According to Variety, Rosenman “was credited with helping to modernize film music in the 1950s and ’60s.” He composed the scores for more than 40 movies and dozens of television shows and specials. He got his start in the New York concert music scene in the early 1950s, and then “brought a more contemporary approach to film music. He applied 20th-century compositional techniques—including serialism, atonality, and microtonality—that were not then in common use among the more traditional Hollywood composers but are widely accepted today.”
He won Oscars in 1975 and 1976, for Barry Lyndon and Bound for Glory (both in the category “Best Music, Original Song Score and Its Adaptation or Best Adaptation”). He was also nominated for Oscars in 1984 and 1987, for Cross Creek and Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (both for “Best Music, Original Score”). His Emmys (1977 and 1979) came for Sybil and Friendly Fire (both for “Outstanding Music Composition for a Special”). He was also nominated for a Golden Globe in 1979 for “Best Original Score of a Motion Picture” for his work on the animated The Lord of the Rings.
The Los Angeles Times obituary quotes film music historian Jon Burlingame: “The irony of his Oscar wins for Barry Lyndon and Bound for Glory was that he was adapting music from others, even though he spent the vast majority of his career writing original music for films.”
Variety notes that “Throughout his Hollywood career, he continued to write music for the concert stage, including numerous chamber works, two violin concertos and a symphony.”
Rosenman’s genre work includes composing the music for films and television programs such as: RoboCop 2 (1990), Body Wars (1989, this short is a part of the “Wonder of Life” exhibit at Disney’s EPCOT Center), Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986), Amazing Stories‘s “No Day at the Beach” (1986), Prophecy (1979), The Lord of the Rings (1978), The Car (1977), The Possessed (1977), Race with the Devil (1975), The Phantom of Hollywood (1974), The Cat Creature (1973), Battle for the Planet of the Apes (1973), Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970), Fantastic Voyage (1966), and The Twilight Zone‘s “And When the Sky Was Opened” (1959).
He is survived by his wife, Judie Gregg Rosenman, three children, and two grandchildren.
Instead of flowers, the family suggests that contributions be made to the Association for Frontotemporal Dementias or the Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital.