Andre Kostelanetz

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Andre Kostelanetz
Background information
Born(1901-12-22)December 22, 1901
Saint Petersburg, Russia
DiedJanuary 13, 1980(1980-01-13) (aged 78)
Port-au-Prince, Haiti
Occupation(s)
  • Conductor
  • arranger
Years active1920–1979
Spouse(s)
Sarah Loy
​
(m. 1923⁠–⁠1937)​
​
(m. 1938⁠–⁠1958)​
Sara Gene Orcutt
​
(m. 1960)​

Andre Kostelanetz (

orchestral music conductor
and arranger who was one of the major exponents of popular orchestra music.

Biography

Abram Naumovich Kostelyanetz was born in Saint Petersburg, Russia to a prominent Jewish family. He was a cousin of physicist Lew Kowarski.[1][2][3]

His father, Nachman Yokhelevich (Naum Ignatyevich) Kostelyanetz, was active on the St. Petersburg stock exchange; his maternal grandfather, Aizik Yevelevich Dymshitz, was a wealthy merchant and industrialist, engaged in timber production. Kostelanetz began playing the piano at four and a half years old. He studied composition and orchestration at the

Russian Revolution,[5]
when he stayed in Paris for a time before moving on to the United States.

He arrived in the United States that year, and in the 1920s, conducted concerts for radio. In the 1930s, he began his own weekly show on

show tunes. He made numerous recordings over the course of his career, which had sales of over 50 million. For many years, he conducted the New York Philharmonic in pops concerts and recordings, in which they were billed as Andre Kostelanetz and His Orchestra.[citation needed
]

Kostelanetz may be best known to modern audiences for a series of

genre called "easy listening". He continued until after some of his contemporaries, including Mantovani, had stopped recording. Outside the United States, one of his best known works was an orchestral arrangement of the tune "With a Song in my Heart", which was the signature tune of a long-running BBC radio program, at first called Forces Favourites, then Family Favourites, and finally Two Way Family Favourites.[citation needed
]

He commissioned many works, including

Fiorello La Guardia and Dorothy Thompson, Alan Hovhaness's Floating World, and Ezra Laderman's Magic Prison. William Walton dedicated his Capriccio burlesco to Kostelanetz, who conducted the first performance and made the first recording, both with the New York Philharmonic.[6]

His last concert was A Night in Old Vienna with the

San Francisco Symphony Orchestra at that city's War Memorial Opera House on December 31, 1979.[7][8][5]

Personal life

His first wife was actress/singer Sarah Loy; they were married from 1923 to 1937, when the marriage was dissolved. He was then married to soprano Lily Pons from 1938 to 1958, when they divorced. They owned a home in Palm Springs, California which was built in 1955.[9] In 1960 he married Sara Gene Orcutt; the marriage lasted several years.[5] All three unions were childless.[10][5]

His brother, Boris Kostelanetz (1911–2006), was a prominent tax defense lawyer.[11]

Death

After the December 31, 1979 concert with the

San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, Kostelanetz left for a vacation in Haiti. While in Haiti, Kostelanetz contracted pneumonia and died on January 13, 1980, aged 78.[5][12]

Discography (partial)

Many of the early LP releases were actually re-releases of albums released earlier on 78 rpm records. Musical Comedy Favorites, for example, was released as Volume 1 (album M-430) in late 1940 for songs 1 through 8, and Volume 2 (M-502) in 1941 for the remaining 8 songs on the second side of the LP.

Four of Kostelanetz's albums made the

Billboard Hot 200, no match for his Columbia easy listening rivals Ray Conniff and Percy Faith
but typical of many of popular instrumental easy listening artists of the day whose audience did not buy their albums immediately upon release but bought them over the years.

References

  1. ^ Евгений К (2013-12-14). "Tonkosti zhizni-Письмо от Коварской Евгении Львовны". Kovarski.ru. Archived from the original on 2013-11-02. Retrieved 2014-08-10.
  2. ^ "Oral History Transcript — Dr. Lew Kowarski". Aip.org. Archived from the original on 2015-01-12. Retrieved 2014-08-10.
  3. ^ "Robert Farnon Society". Rfsoc.org.uk. Archived from the original on 2013-11-03. Retrieved 2014-08-10.
  4. ^ So You Want to Be... CBS Radio And Young America News Weekly. April 12, 1939.
  5. ^ a b c d e Cross, Lucy E. (2015). "Andre Kostelanetz". Masterworks Broadway. Sony Music Entertainment. Retrieved October 5, 2017.
  6. ^ Liner notes from Musical Evenings: Andre Koselanetz, mfp Classics, CFP 4074.
  7. ^ "Andre Kostelanetz Papers Donated to Library of Congress - News Releases (Library of Congress)". Loc.gov. Retrieved 2014-08-10.
  8. ^ "Andre Kostelanetz". Andre Kostelanetz. Retrieved 2014-08-10.
  9. ISBN 978-1479328598
    .
  10. ^ Rubin, Stephen E. (May 6, 1973). "Andre Kostelanetz‐Middlebrow Toscanini?". New York Times. New York. Retrieved October 5, 2017.
  11. ^ Dash, Eric (4 February 2006). "Boris Kostelanetz, 94, Tax Defense Lawyer for the Notable, Dies". The New York Times. Retrieved 2014-08-10.
  12. ^ Smith, J.Y. (January 15, 1980). "Conductor Andre Kostelanetz, 78, Dies". Washington Post. Washington, DC. Retrieved October 5, 2017.
  13. ^ a b c d e "André Kostelanetz". Billboard. Retrieved 2022-12-11.

Bibliography

External links

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