Gershon Kingsley

Composer, conductor, arranger, instrumentalist and electronic music specialist Gershon Kingsley was born Götz Gustav Ksinski in Bochum, Germany, and grew up in Berlin until the age of 15 when he fled the Nazi regime to Palestine in 1938. He had little formal schooling and was a self-taught pianist. In 1946, after WWII, he moved to New York to join his family, and applied to study at the Juilliard School but was rejected because of his lack of high school education. He moved to Los Angeles, finishing his high school studies at night school and enrolling at the LA Conservatory of Music. He worked as an organ player at several synagogues. After graduating from the LA Conservatory of Music, Kingsley moved back to New York starting work as a musical director on Broadway, notably for a production of 'The Entertainer' which starred Laurence Olivier. He conducted several other Broadway and off-Broadway productions in the late 1950s and early 1960s, including 'La Plume De Ma Tante' (1958-1960), 'Fly Blackbird!' (1962) and 'The Cradle Will Rock' (1964), also arranging much of the music. Kingsley composed many secular and religious works; the latter inspired by Jewish and Hebrew texts, including 'They Never Had a Chance to Live', 'A Prophet's Song of Love' and 'Shepherd Me, Lord'. He began to work for Vanguard Records and whilst there he met French composer Jean-Jacques Perrey, who introduced him to the Moog Synthesizer. Together, Kingsley and Perrey released two experimental pop albums called 'The in Sound from Way Out' (1966) and 'Kaleidoscope Variations: Electronic Pop Music from Way Out' (1967) which used tape loops and Moog synthesizers to produce an entirely new sound. 'Kaleidoscope Variations' contained the track 'Baroque Hoedown' which was instantly popular and was used by Disney theme parks throughout the world. Kingsley soon became an advocate for the Moog synthesizer, and in 1969 produced the album 'Music to Moog By' which contained the track 'Popcorn', which is his best known work. Although it was not an instant hit when first released, it became internationally popular in 1972 when re-released by Hot Butter. Since then it has been covered by many artists including Jean Michel-Jarre, Kraftwerk, Aphex Twin, The Muppets and Crazy Frog. He also introduced the Moog synthesizer to classical music and formed the First Moog Quartet in 1969. In 1970, they performed the world's first ever live show of synthesized music in the Carnegie Hall, New York, which received mixed reviews because the sound was so new. In 1971, Kingsley's composition 'Concerto Moog', for synthesizer quartet and symphony orchestra, was premiered in the Boston Symphony Hall and this led to a tour with performances with several leading orchestras both in America and Europe. He wrote several other works for television and film including 'A New Voice in the Wilderness'. He went on to compose several works in the emerging style of electronic New Age, which included 'Much Silence' (1980). In 1992, he wrote 'Cristobel', a musical to commemorate the 500th Anniversary of Columbus' voyage to America. Other notable works include 'Voices from the Shadow' (1998), 'Selma' (2000) and the opera 'Raoul' (2004). He continued to compose, conduct and perform until his death in 2019 aged 97.

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