Lalo Schifrin

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Lalo Schifrin
Cologne, Germany, July 2006
Background information
Birth nameBoris Claudio Schifrin
Born(1932-06-21)June 21, 1932
Buenos Aires, Argentina
DiedJune 26, 2025(2025-06-26) (aged 93)
Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Education
Genres
Occupations
  • Musician
  • composer
  • arranger
  • conductor
Instruments
  • Piano
  • keyboards
Years active1952–2025
Labels
Spouse(s)Sylvia Schor (1958–) (divorced)
Donna Cockrell (1971–)

Lalo Schifrin (Spanish pronunciation: [ˈlalo ˈʃifɾin];[1] born Boris Claudio Schifrin; June 21, 1932 – June 26, 2025) was an Argentine-American pianist, composer, arranger and conductor. He was best known for his large body of film and television scores, which incorporate jazz and Latin American musical elements alongside traditional orchestration.

Schifrin's best known compositions include the themes from Mission: Impossible (1966) and Mannix (1967), as well as the scores to Cool Hand Luke (1967), Bullitt (1968), THX 1138 (1971), Enter the Dragon (1973), The Four Musketeers (1974), Voyage of the Damned (1976), The Eagle Has Landed (1976), The Amityville Horror (1979) and the Rush Hour trilogy (1998–2007). Schifrin was also noted for collaborations with Clint Eastwood from the late 1960s to the 1980s, particularly the Dirty Harry film series. He composed the Paramount Pictures fanfare used from 1976 to 2004.

Schifrin was a five-time

Honorary Academy Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
in recognition of his successful career.

Life and career

Early life and education

Schifrin was born in Buenos Aires on June 21, 1932[2][3] as Boris Claudio.[4] The nickname "Lalo" was the normal Argentine diminutive for his second name, Claudio. When he came to the U.S., he changed his name to Lalo legally to simplify his contracts.[5]

His father, Luis Schifrin, led the second violin section of the Buenos Aires Philharmonic for three decades.[4][6] His father was Jewish and his mother Catholic, exposing him early to both kinds of worship.[7] At age six, Schifrin began a six-year course of study on piano with Enrique Barenboim, the father of pianist and conductor Daniel Barenboim. Schifrin began studying piano with the Greek-Russian expatriate Andrea Karalin, the onetime head of the Kyiv Conservatory and harmony with Juan Carlos Paz.[6] During this time, Schifrin also became interested in jazz.[5]

Although Schifrin studied sociology and law at the University of Buenos Aires, he became more interested in music.[4] At age 20, he successfully applied for a scholarship to the Conservatoire de Paris where he studied from 1952, including with Olivier Messiaen[6] and Charles Koechlin.[2] He also studied African drumming.[7] At night, he played jazz in Paris clubs.[6] In 1955 Schifrin played piano with bandoneon player Ástor Piazzolla and represented his country at the International Jazz Festival in Paris.[8]

1956–1963: Jazz composer

After returning to Argentina in his twenties, Schifrin formed a jazz big band[6] of 16 players that became part of a popular weekly variety show on Buenos Aires TV. He also began accepting film, television and radio assignments. In 1956 he met Dizzy Gillespie[6] and offered to write an extended work for Gillespie's big band. Schifrin completed the work, Gillespiana, in 1958[4] and it was recorded in 1960.[6]

While in New York City in 1960, Schifrin again met Gillespie, who had by this time disbanded his big band for financial reasons. Gillespie invited Schifrin to fill the vacant piano chair in his quintet. Schifrin immediately accepted and moved to New York City, as Gillespie's pianist and arranger.[6][7] Schifrin wrote a second extended composition for Gillespie, The New Continent, which was recorded in 1962.[6] On May 26, 1963, he recorded an album, Buenos Aires Blues, with Duke Ellington's alto saxophonist, Johnny Hodges. Schifrin wrote two compositions for the album; Dreary Blues and the title track B. A. Blues.

1964–1989: Film composer

In 1963 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, which had Schifrin under contract, offered the composer his first Hollywood film assignment with the African adventure Rhino![4] Schifrin moved to Los Angeles.[6][7] He became a naturalized US citizen in 1969.[7]

Record of Mission: Impossible theme
Record of Mission: Impossible theme

One of Schifrin's most recognizable and enduring compositions is the theme music for the long-running TV series Mission: Impossible that started in 1966.[6] It is a distinctive tune written in the uncommon 5
4 time signature.[6] The meter (dash dash, dot dot) is Morse code for the letters M and I. Similarly Schifrin's theme for the Mannix private eye TV show was composed in 1967 as a jazz waltz;[6] Schifrin composed several other jazzy and bluesy numbers over the years as additional incidental music for the show.[9]

Schifrin's "Tar Sequence" from his

gold record.[14]

Schifrin's working score for 1973's

television division 11 years later until it was renamed to CBS Paramount Television (now CBS Studios) in 2006.[17] In 1981 he wrote the music for the slapstick comedy film Caveman.[18]

1990–2025

In the 1990s, Schifrin wrote many of the arrangements for The Three Tenors concerts,[6] beginning with their first concert in Rome in 1990 on the eve of the FIFA World Cup final.[2] In the 1998 film Tango, he returned to tango music, with which he had grown familiar while working as Piazzolla's pianist in the mid-1950s. He brought traditional tango songs to the film, as well as introducing compositions of his own, in which tango is fused with jazz elements.[19]

He founded Aleph Records in 1998.

trip-hop songs including Heltah Skeltah's "Prowl" and Portishead's "Sour Times". Both songs sample Schifrin's "Danube Incident", one of many themes he composed for specific episodes of the Mission: Impossible TV series. In 2003, Schifrin was commissioned to compose a classical work entitled Symphonic Impressions of Oman by Sultan Qaboos bin Said
.

On April 23, 2007, Schifrin presented a concert of film music for the Festival du Film Jules Verne Aventures (

Le Grand Rex theatre in Paris–Europe's biggest movie theater.[21][22] It was recorded by festival leaders for a CD named Lalo Schifrin: Le Concert à Paris. In 2010, a fictionalized account of Lalo Schifrin's creation of the "Theme from Mission: Impossible" tune was featured in a Lipton TV commercial aired in a number of countries around the world.[23]

After Rod Schejtman won the 2024 Vienna WorldVision Composers Contest,[24] Schifrin in 2024 invited him to jointly compose a symphony dedicated to their country.[25] They composed a 35-minute symphony in three movements, subtitled "Long Live Freedom",[6] for an orchestra of nearly 100 musicians. Intending it as a tribute to Argentina, they drew inspiration from the nation's history over the past 40 years and fused cinematic and classical elements.[25][26] The symphony premiered at the Teatro Colón on April 5, 2025.[6]

Personal life and death

Schifrin married Sylvia Schor in Buenos Aires in 1958; they had two children[27][28][29] The marriage ended in divorce.[2] He married Donna Cockrell in 1971; they had a son. His second wife managed his business and record label.[2][6]

In 2008 Schifrin wrote an autobiography, Mission Impossible: My Life in Music.[6][30] He said:

In music, the choices are infinite. The possibilities of sound combinations with the acoustic instruments of a symphony orchestra, a jazz band or a chamber ensemble have not yet been exhausted. What has been done in the field of electronic music so far has not even scratched the surface of a vast continent to be explored.[6]

Schifrin died from complications of pneumonia at a hospital in Los Angeles, on June 26, 2025, at age 93.[6][31][32]

Works

Discography

Main article: Lalo Schifrin discography

Selected filmography

Film

Television

Awards and nominations

Schifrin won five Grammy Awards (four Grammy Awards and a Latin Grammy), with twenty-two nominations, one CableACE Award and received six Academy Award and four Primetime Emmy Award nominations. He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In 2016, it was announced that his Mission: Impossible theme was to be inducted into the Grammy Award Hall of Fame. In 2018, Clint Eastwood presented him with an Academy Honorary Award "in recognition of his unique musical style, compositional integrity and influential contributions to the art of film scoring."[6]

Year Association Category Project Result Ref.
1967 Academy Awards Best Original Score Cool Hand Luke Nominated [35]
1968 The Fox Nominated [36]
1976 Voyage of the Damned Nominated [42]
1979 The Amityville Horror Nominated [44]
1980 Best Original Song "People Alone" (from The Competition) Nominated [58]
1983 Best Original Score The Sting II Nominated [59]
2018 Academy Honorary Award Honored [60]
1976 Golden Globe Awards Best Original Score Voyage of the Damned Nominated [45]
1979 The Amityville Horror Nominated [45]
1980 The Competition Nominated [45]
1966 Primetime Emmy Awards Outstanding Achievement in Music Composition The Making of a President: 1964 Nominated [33]
1967 Mission: Impossible Nominated [61]
1968 Mission: Impossible (Episode: "The Seal") Nominated [62]
1969 Mission: Impossible (Episode: "The Heir Apparent") Nominated [63]
1962 Grammy Awards Best Original Jazz Composition Gillespiana Nominated [64]
1963 Tunisian Fantasy Nominated [65]
1965 "The Cat" (from Joy House) Won [66]
1966 Jazz Suite on the Mass Texts Won [67]
Best Score Soundtrack for Visual Media The Man from U.N.C.L.E. Nominated
1967 Best Original Jazz Composition Marquis De Sade Nominated [68]
1968 Best Instrumental Performance Theme from Mission: Impossible Nominated [69]
Best Instrumental Composition Won
Best Score Soundtrack for Visual Media Mission: Impossible Won
1969 Best Theme Composition Theme from The Fox Nominated [70]
Best Score Soundtrack for Visual Media The Fox Nominated
1971 Best Instrumental Composition Theme from Medical Center Nominated [71]
Best Instrumental Arrangement Nominated
1994 Dizzy Gillespie Fireworks Nominated [72]
1997 Charlie Parker: The Firebird (Medley) Nominated [73]
Best Pop Instrumental Performance Theme from Mission: Impossible Nominated
1999 Best Score Soundtrack for Visual Media Rush Hour Nominated [74]
2000 Best Instrumental Arrangement Fiesta Nominated [75]
2002 Scheherazade Fantasy Nominated [76]
2000
Latin Grammy Award
 Best Latin Jazz Album Latin Jazz Suite Nominated [77]
2006 Best Tango Album Letters from Argentina Nominated [77]
2010 Best Classical Contemporary Composition Pampas Won [77]
2011 Romerías Nominated [77]

References

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