With Kenneth Marcus, Larry Schoenberg, Movses Pogossian, Jocelyn Ho, and David Newman

Arnold Schönberg’s connections to Hollywood were vital to his American career, and he left a lasting impact on many American and exile composers who studied and worked with him. Among his American friends in Hollywood were George Gershwin, Alfred Newman, and David Raksin, who all feature prominently in this lecture-concert at the Villa Aurora on Saturday, May 26, from 4 to 7 pm. Professor Kenneth Marcus (University of La Verne) will highlight aspects of his recent book, Schönberg and Hollywood Modernism (hardback 2016, paperback 2018), in which he demonstrates the fascinating ties between Schönberg, the Hollywood entertainment industry, and the modernist movement in southern California.

Even before moving to the West Coast from New York in 1934, Schönberg saw the entertainment industry as his main source for students, and he hoped to teach theory and harmony to film composers and studio musicians. Hollywood figures also commissioned works, performed in concerts of Schönberg’s music, and even tried to persuade him to write a film score, for which sketches survive. And when Schönberg first referred to himself as a “California composer,” Alfred Newman had just arranged the first complete recording of the Four String Quartets on a Hollywood sound stage.

Supported by the Austrian Consulate General as part of the new series "Vienna in Hollywood”, highlighting the major impact of Austrians on the U.S. film industry from the Golden Age of Hollywood to the present.