Michel Legrand Biography

Michel Legrand (born February 24, 1932 in Paris) is a French musical composer, arranger, conductor and pianist.

He has composed over 200 film and television scores, several musicals, and made well over a hundred albums. He has won three Oscars (out of 13 nominations), five Grammys, and has been nominated for an Emmy. He was 22 when his very first album, I Love Paris, became one of the best-selling instrumental albums ever released. He is a virtuoso jazz and classical pianist, and an accomplished arranger and conductor who performs with orchestras all over the world.

In the early 1950s, Legrand was one of the first Europeans to work with legendary jazz innovators Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Stan Getz and Bill Evans. At that time they were at the height of their popularity, and to a European musician working with them seemed unattainable. But Legrand's talent and charm won over these great musicians, who made the records with him and left the memories to their descendants.

During various periods of creative work, Legrand became a conductor of different orchestras in St. Petersburg, Vancouver, Montreal, Atlanta and Denver. Many world stars (jazz, variety and even classical) recorded more than 100 albums with him. More than any other European songwriter, Legrand knew how to infiltrate into the repertoire of top singers such as Frank Sinatra, Sarah Vaughan, Jack Jones, Ella Fitzgerald, Perry Como, Lena Horne, Dame Kiri te Kanawa, James Ingram, Johnny Mathis and Barbra Streisand.

His sister, Christine Legrand, was a member of the Swingle Singers. She was the singing voice of Emily in the film "Umbrellas of Cherbourg" (1964).

Legrand is known principally as a composer of innovative cinema music. After his songs appeared in Jacques Demy's films The Umbrellas of Cherbourg and The Young Girls of Rochefort, Legrand became famous. Les Parapluies de Cherbourg was a sung-through musical where all the dialogue was set to music, a revolutionary concept. A new genre had been created where there could be no words without music.

Hollywood soon became interested in Legrand, bombarding him with orders to compose music for one film or to another. This was significant in an era where Americans were usually unwilling to collaborate with foreign musicians and actors; for many Europeans, the doors of Hollywood stayed closed. Relatively few received the chance to work there, and Legrand was lucky to be among them. Having begun to collaborate with Hollywood, Legrand had to stay for a long time at this wonderful place which was a dream for everybody who was connected with cinema. These days he divides his time between America and France at once, composing film scores (about 200 to date) for directors Jean-Luc Godard, Richard Brooks, Claude Lelouch, Clint Eastwood and many others.

Rarely has a musician received as many awards as Michel Legrand. He has received 3 Oscars, 5 Grammys and numerous other awards and nominations. The following are some of the awards and nominations with which Legrand's works have been honored: