Norman Luboff
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Norman Luboff
- Genres: Classical
Biography
The Norman Luboff Choir was among the most popular choral ensembles of their day, releasing a series of hit easy-listening LPs during the late 1950s and 1960s. Luboff was born May 14, 1917 in Chicago, where he began his career as a vocalist and arranger for area radio programs; in 1948 he relocated to Hollywood, signing on to compose movie music for Warner Bros. The first incarnation of the Norman Luboff Choir was formed during the mid-1950s, and in the years to follow they released a series of albums on Columbia that drew on music from a variety of genres and geographic locales, with titles including Calypso Holiday, Broadway!, Songs of the Cowboy and Songs of the Caribbean. The choir also backed a number of vocalists including Harry Belafonte and Doris Day, and although their recording career came to a halt during the late 1960s, they continued touring until Luboff's cancer-related death on September 22, 1987. ~ Jason Ankeny, RoviWikipedia on Answers.com:
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Norman Luboff
Norman Luboff (May 14, 1917 - September 22, 1987) was an American music arranger, music publisher, and choir director.
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Early years
Norman Luboff was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1917. He studied piano as a child and participated in his high school chorus. Luboff studied at the University of Chicago and Central College in Chicago. Following this, he did graduate work with the composer Leo Sowerby while singing and writing for radio programs in Chicago. In the mid-1940s, Luboff moved to New York City.
TV and movies
With a call from Hollywood to be choral director of The Railroad Hour, a radio weekly starring Gordon MacRae, Luboff began a successful career scoring many television programs and more than eighty motion pictures. He also recorded with artists such as Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Jo Stafford, Frankie Laine and Doris Day.
Publishing Company
In 1950, he established Walton Music Corporation, to publish his music. Luboff provided a vehicle for composers in Sweden to have their works available in the United States, including Egil Hovland and Waldemar Ahlen. Walton Music exists today as a major choral music publisher, under the guidance of Luboff's widow, Gunilla Marcus-Luboff, a former Swedish television producer.
Norman Luboff Choir
Luboff was the founder and conductor of the Norman Luboff Choir, one of the leading choral groups of the 1950s, 60s and 70s. The choral group toured yearly from 1963 to 1987, and recorded more than seventy-five albums. The holiday albums Songs of Christmas (1956) and Christmas with the Norman Luboff Choir (1964) were perennial bestsellers for years. Luboff and his choir won the 1961 Grammy Award for Best Performance by a Chorus.
Guest conductor
Luboff was a guest conductor at many choirs in the United States and abroad.
Death
Norman Luboff died of lung cancer[1] at his home in Bynum, North Carolina in 1987. The Norman Luboff Collection was donated to the Music Division of the United States Library of Congress in 1993 by his widow.
References
External links
- Norman Luboff at the Internet Movie Database
- Walton Music website
- Link to a Noman Luboff Choir Discography: http://www.akh.se/luboff/center.htm
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Mentioned in
Songs of Christmas
(1958 Album by Norman Luboff Choir)
Songs of the South/Songs of the Sea
(1999 Album by Norman Luboff Choir)
Sea Shanties
(1961 Album by The Men of the Robert Shaw Chorale)
Songs of the West
(1955 Album by Norman Luboff Choir)
Ticket to the Movies
(1999 Album by Norman Luboff Choir)
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