For several years, every Monday Gisele has driven to Scottsdale for a small advanced French class that met in the home of one of the students, Angela Morley. Gisele mentioned to me that Angela, an elderly lady, was a composer and had won some awards.
Angela died last Monday, and I looked into her past a little bit. It turns out that the awards she had received were 11 Emmy nominations, 3 Emmy awards and 2 Oscar Nominations. It turns out she collaborated with John Williams on the score for several movies, including ET, Home Alone, Star Wars, Superman, The Empire Strikes Back and Schindler’s List. She wrote the score for the animated movie Watership Down. She wrote the scores for several TV shows, including Dallas, Dynasty, Falcon Crest, Hotel, Cagney and Lacy, Wonder Woman and others. She wrote many arrangements for Julie Andrews, Mel Torme, Placido Domingo and others. She arranged music that Itzhak Perlman and Yo Yo Ma played at the 2001 Academy Awards ceremony.
There is a small memorial service on Saturday for family and close friends that Gisele has been invited to. Only after her death did Gisele realize that her friend and classmate had lived such a productive and illustrious life.
Wow. Amazing life.
Comment by Don — January 20, 2009 @ 11:37 am
That’s really cool. I played some of those scores in high school.
Comment by Robin — January 20, 2009 @ 1:48 pm