Irwin Kostal
Irwin Kostal (October 1, 1911 – November 23, 1994) was an American musical arranger of films and an orchestrator of Broadway musicals.
Irwin Kostal
November 23, 1994 (aged 83)
Studio City, California, U.S.
Musical film, musical theatre, animation
1950s–1994
Biography[edit]
Born in Chicago, Illinois, Kostal attended Harrison Technical High School,[1] but opted not to attend college, instead teaching himself musical arranging by studying the symphonic scores available at his local library. His first professional job was as a staff arranger for Design for Listening, an NBC radio show based in his hometown. Irwin was one of four children born to James and Emma Kostal in a Czech enclave of Chicago.[2] His siblings James, Jerome and Violet all remained in the Chicago area.[3]
After moving to New York City, Kostal was hired for Sid Caesar's popular variety series Your Show of Shows, and followed this with a stint at The Garry Moore Show.
In the latter part of the decade he began working on Broadway, orchestrating for Shinbone Alley, The Music Man, Fiorello!, and West Side Story. His work on the latter resulted in his being hired to score the 1961 screen adaptation with Saul Chaplin, Johnny Green, and Sid Ramin. The quartet won both an Oscar and a Grammy Award for their contributions. Kostal later went on to collaborate with Saul Chaplin for the 1965 film adaptation of the Rodgers & Hammerstein musical The Sound of Music and won an Oscar for Best Music Scoring.
He also conducted the orchestra for several of the Firestone Christmas Albums.
For the remainder of his life, Kostal divided his time primarily between stage and screen, with an occasional detour into television to work with such people as Carol Burnett, Lucille Ball, and Leonard Bernstein. He supervised five of the Sherman Brothers musical film scores (one of them being Mary Poppins) at four different movie studios between 1964 and 1978. In 1982, he conducted the digital re-recording of the music to Walt Disney's 1940 animated feature Fantasia.
Death[edit]
Kostal died of a heart attack in Studio City, California. At the time of his death he was a widower (his wife Sylvia had died the year before), and president of the American Society of Music Arrangers and Composers. In 2004 he was named a Disney Legend in recognition of his contributions to films released by the studio.