Lee Holdridge
Lee Elwood Holdridge is an American composer, conductor, and orchestrator. An 18-time Emmy Award nominee, he has won two Primetime Emmy Awards, two Daytime Emmy Awards, two News and Documentary Emmy Awards, and one Sports Emmy Award. He has also been nominated for two Grammy Awards.
Life and career
Holdridge was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, of a Puerto Rican mother and an American father, Leslie Holdridge, a botanist and climatologist.While living in Costa Rica, at age ten, he studied the violin with Hugo Mariani, who was at the time the conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra of Costa Rica. He then moved to Boston, where he finished high school and studied composition with Henry Lasker. Later in New York he had numerous study consultations with composer Nicolas Flagello as well as composer-lyricist Stephen Sondheim.
The move to New York City enabled Holdridge to continue his music studies and begin his career as a professional composer. There, he composed chamber works, rock pieces, songs, theater music and background scores for short films, and eventually came to Neil Diamond's notice. Diamond then brought Holdridge with him to Los Angeles to write arrangements for his forthcoming albums. After several gold and platinum hits, the two collaborated on the Grammy Award winning score for producer/director Hall Bartlett's film adaptation of Jonathan Livingston Seagull. Neil Diamond sued Bartlett for cutting much of his music from the film. Diamond was also against sharing musical credit with Holdridge; however, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences ruled in Holdridge's favor. Bartlett was ordered to reinstate the five minutes of Diamond's music score and three of his songs, "Anthem", "Prologue", and "Dear Father", and that the onscreen credits were to state "Music and songs by Neil Diamond", "Background score composed and adapted by Neil Diamond and Lee Holdridge", and "Music supervision by Tom Catalano".
Holdridge has composed and orchestrated for many films, including:Jeremy Forever Young, Forever Free Mustang Country The Pack The Other Side of the Mountain Part 2 Like Mom, Like Me Moment by Moment Tilt French Postcards American Pop The Day the Loving Stopped The Beastmaster Mr. Mom Splash Micki & Maude Transylvania 6-5000 The Men's Club A Tiger's Tale Big Business Old Gringo The Adventures of Pinocchio Into Thin Air: Death on Everest The Secret of NIMH 2: Timmy to the Rescue Into the Arms of Strangers: Stories of the Kindertransport Puerto Vallarta Squeeze Brothers at War.It Is No Dream Brothers After War
He composed for several television series, including: SaraEast of EdenEight is EnoughI'll Take ManhattanAtomic TrainThe Mists of AvalonAmerican FamilyThe Brooke Ellison StoryMoonlightingBeauty and the Beast10.5