Still prominent is the Paris-born composer, arranger, conductor, film-scorer, pianist and singer Michel Legrand (b.1932). As "at home" in the USA since his first visits to Hollywood as a jazz-musician around 1960, this quintessentially Parisian son of Raymond Legrand (1908-1974) produced some of the most imaginative film themes of the 1960s and 1970s. World Of Legrand, his potpourri arrangement for orchestra includes, among other hits, The Windmills Of Your Mind (from The Thomas Crown Affair, 1968) and The Summer Knows (from Summer Of '42,197I).
Michel Legrand ranks amongst the greats of film composing through a distinguished career that spans half-a-century and over 200 films. His attributes range from singer, jazz-pianist, songwriter to conductor, actor, screenwriter and film director - so far he received 3 Oscars and 5 Grammys. Not many composers can claim to have written for both Edith Piaf and James Bond – and it's precisely this fusion of European romance and Hollywood dynamism that has made Legrand one of the soundtrack world's most lauded names.
He has worked with many of the greatest artists of the 20th century including Frank Sinatra, Miles Davis, Barbra Streisand, Edith Piaf, Aretha Franklin and Ray Charles. He collaborated with French Nouvelle Vague directors Jean-Luc Godard and Claude Chabrol as well as Hollywood stars Clint Eastwood and Orson Welles.
