George Kleinsinger


George Kleinsinger was an American composer mostly known for children's compositions, Broadway scores, and film/television scores. He is best-known for a string of children's compositions in collaboration with lyricist Paul Tripp and a series of works in collaboration with Joe Darion based on Don Marquis' Archy and Mehitabel columns.

Biography

Early life, career, and death

Born in San Bernardino, California to a Polish-Jewish family. In 1930, Kleinsinger graduated from DeWitt Clinton High School. He earned a B.A. degree in music from New York University, then further studied composition at Juilliard. He began his career playing in bands on the Borscht Belt, including playing with trumpeter Frankie Newton.
He collaborated with Paul Tripp on a number of orchestral/vocal works for a young audience, beginning with "Tubby the Tuba".
In 1948, he wrote music for the original Max Fleischer/Jam Handy animated adaptation of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. This led to him being commissioned to set the song to music for the 1964 Rankin-Bass adaptation. The producers elected to use the Johnny Marks version of the song, but Kleinsinger retained partial songwriting credit; the resulting royalties made him wealthy. Kleinsinger's version of the song was released by RCA on a 1964 LP sung by Paul Wing with Russ Case's orchestra.
In the early 1950s, he co-founded the Roslyn Chamber Music Group with Robert Bernstein and Leonid Hambro with the goal of attracting the highest caliber chamber musicians to perform in Long Island.
He scored dozens of television shows, movies, and documentaries in the 1950s and 1960s for various studios. The most famous works include John Brown's Body for CBS, Greece: The Golden Age for which he was nominated for an Emmy, and the labor documentary The Inheritance, whose title song was performed by Judy Collins and a chorus that included Pete Seeger.
He had a long association with musical adaptions of Don Marquis' lower-case archy and mehitabel newspaper columns. This began with a 1954 concept record album Archy & Mehitabel starring Carol Channing, and included a 1954 opera premiered by the Little Orchestra Society, the 1957 Broadway musical Shinbone Alley '', and the 1970 film adaptation Shinbone Alley. Stephen Schwartz, who was Kleinsinger's neighbor in Roslyn, was inspired by the musical to become a composer.
In addition to the numerous children's and programmatic compositions, Kleinsinger composed more traditional Western classical music, including a cello concerto and a quintet for clarinet and strings.
For the last 25 years of his life, he was a notable resident of New York's Chelsea Hotel. He befriended his neighbor Brendan Behan and wrote his Brendan Behan Suite which features tape recordings of Behan singing that he surreptitiously made. Their friendship was documented in Janet Behan's play Brendan at the Chelsea. He wrote film scores for his neighbor Doris Totten Chase. He gained notoriety for his hobby of recreating a tropical environment in the apartment, including keeping iguana, tarantulas, walking catfish, turtles, exotic birds, and a baby hippo. In 1972 this was the subject of Harry Reasoner television documentary Who Do You Think You Are? – Man and Beast''. Kleinsinger reported that his second wife gave him an ultimatum between his marriage or his apartment. Sculptures of Kleinsinger and other Chelsea residents by Eugenie Gershoy still hang in the Chelsea lobby.
He was married three times. He died of cancer in New York City in 1982. A memorial service was held the next week at Judson Memorial Church; his wife spread his ashes on Chelsea Hotel's rooftop garden.

Selected works

Joy of Living, an early work, a suite for orchestra.I Hear America Singing, cantata, text by Walt Whitman, Kleinsinger's first work to be recorded in 1941, sung by John Charles Thomas, the ILGWU Radio Chorus, and the Victor Symphony Orchestra conducted by Nathaniel Shilkret.Victory Against Heaven, one-act opera. Libretto by Winthrop Bushnell. Premiered January 1941 at the Avery Memorial Museum in Hartford, Connecticut.Western RhapsodyDude Ranch Suite