Ferde Grofé
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Ferdinand Rudolph von Grofé (New York City, March 27, 1892 – Santa Monica, California, April 3, 1972) was an American composer, pianist and arranger.
He was born into a family of four generations of classical musicians. His father was a baritone and actor and his mother a cellist and music teacher. He left home at the age of fourteen and variously worked as a milkman, truck driver, usher, newsboy, elevator operator, helper in a book bindery, iron factory worker, as a piano player in a bar for $2 a night and as an accompanist. He studied piano and violin: when he was fifteen he was performing with dance bands. He also played the alto horn in brass bands.
He was 17 when he wrote his first commissioned work. Beginning about 1920 he played the jazz piano with the Paul Whiteman orchestra for which he also served as an arranger until 1933. His most notable arrangement was that of Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue which established his reputation among jazz musicians. He also composed original pieces in a symphonic jazz style. Later he was employed as a conductor and as a faculty member at the Juilliard School of Music where he taught orchestration.
His works include Grand Canyon Suite, Sonata for Flute and Bicycle Pump, Trylon and Perisphere for the New York World's Fair of 1939-40, Hollywood Suite, Niagara Falls Suite, Mississippi Suite: a journey in tones in 1925, Broadway at Night, Three Shades of Blue, Metropolis: a Fantasy in Blue in 1928, A Symphony in Steel, Concerto for Piano and Orchestra in D, and Death Valley Suite. His soundtrack to the 1950 sci-fi film Rocketship X-M included the use of the Theremin.
His monumental Grand Canyon Suite in 1931 is his best known work, a masterpiece in orchestration and evocation of mood and location.
Ferde Grofe was buried in the Mausoleum of the Golden West, Inglewood Park Cemetery, Inglewood, California.de:Ferde Grofé fr:Ferde Grofé nl:Ferde Grofé ja:ファーディ・グローフェ nn:Ferde Grofé sv:Ferde Grofé
