One of the few Los Angeles-born composers working in Hollywood, Cliff Eidelman
(born 1964) began his formal musical training at the age of eight, studying the violin. After
experimenting with the jazz guitar, he trained at Santa Monica City College, where he received
his two commissions (the ballet Once Upon a Ruler and Celebration Symphony Overture
in Three Movements). After enrolling in the music program at USC, Eidelman received his
first lucky break into film scoring, with an offer to write for the feature film Magdalene.
Recorded with a stunningly large orchestra and choir in Europe, the score showcased Eidelman's
ability to write an epic and melodic score. After providing an equally impressive score for
the WWII drama Triumph of the Spirit in 1989, Eidelman expanded beyond the television
venue in which had been concentrating and wrote his two fan favorite scores, Star Trek VI:
The Undiscovered Country and Christopher Columbus: The Discovery.
Beginning in 1992, Eidelman began writing introspective and intimate scores for films of stronger
character orientation, and by 1998, it would be these scores by which the composer's talents
would be best known in the industry. For
Untamed Heart,
Leap of Faith,
My Girl
2,
A Simple Twist of Fate,
Now and Then, and
One True Thing, Eidelman
would compose and conduct minimalistic, but thematically rich scores, often with the piano as
the centerpiece of the work. Between 1989 and 1999, Eidelman also scored a multitude of telvision
films, including the 1989 HBO film
Dead Man Out (a score which was nominated for a Cable
Ace award), the dramatic 1996 telefilm
If These Walls Could Talk and the 1999 HBO
production of
Witness Protection.
In the 1990's, Eidelman also emerged as an equally talented conductor. With performing groups in Seattle
and Scotland, he has conducted numerous performances of film music, as well as his own compositions,
and most of which released on the Varèse Sarabande record label. During his entire career,
Eidelman has continued to write original pieces for the concert hall, including "Suite for Orchestra"
in 1996, "Five Pieces from Stage and Screen" in 1987, "The Creation Symphony" in 1995, and "The
Tempest" in 1996. Eidelman remained active in these endeavors even as his film scoring career
slowed in the 2000's, and the composer continued to reside in Santa Monica, California.
Cliff Eidelman in the 1990's
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