Herschel Burke Gilbert

Composer, arranger and orchestrator of prolific output. Trained on violin and leader of his own dance band by the age of fifteen. Studied at the Juilliard Institute of Musical Art (1939-41), subsequently learned composition under the tutelage of Aaron Copland, Leonard Bernstein, and Lukas Foss. Briefly joined the big band of Harry James as arranger and violist in 1943. In Hollywood between 1944 and 1958, variously under contract with Columbia, United Artists and 20th Century Fox as arranger/music director. His most productive spell was between 1952 and 1954, when he became the first person to receive Oscar nominations for the categories of Original Score, Song and Musical Adaptation in the course of three successive years. From 1958 to 1965, he worked as Music Director respectively for Dick Powell's Four Star Television Company and for the CBS TV Network. He was acclaimed for numerous television background scores, including such seminal series as The Detectives (1959), The Rifleman (1958) and Burke's Law (1963). In 1974, he founded his own music label, Laurel Records, as an outlet for classical chamber music and jazz, featuring mainly American composers. Gilbert was a former president of the Screen Composers of America (SCA) and of the American Society of Music Arrangers. He also served as president and vice president of the Society for the Preservation of Film Music.