Photo: AP
LOS ANGELES
Andre Previn, the pianist, composer and conductor whose broad reach took in the worlds of Hollywood, jazz and classical music, always rejecting suggestions that his bop ‘n’ blues moonlighting lessened his stature, died Thursday. He was 89.
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His manager Linda Petrikova said Previn passed away in his Manhattan home. His ex-wife Mia Farrow tweeted Thursday, “See you in the Morning beloved Friend. May you rest in glorious symphonies.”
Previn was a child prodigy whose family fled Nazi Germany. As a teenager, he found work as a composer and arranger in the musical sweatshops of Hollywood, mostly at MGM, winning four Oscars for his orchestrations of such stylish musicals as 1964′s ‘My Fair Lady.’
Previn then abandoned Hollywood for a career as a classical conductor. He was named musical director of the Houston Symphony in 1967, and went on to lead such renowned orchestras as the Los Angeles Philharmonic and London’s Royal Philharmonic.
In 1998, his opera based on ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ premiered at the San Francisco Opera. Through his career, Previn continued to dip in and out of the jazz world. “I don’t ever consciously change gears when I play jazz or classical,” he once said. “It’s all music.”
Hollywood also accorded Previn fame. He was nominated for 13 Academy Awards and won four. Besides ‘My Fair Lady,’ his Oscar-winning orchestrations included ‘Gigi’ (1958), ‘Porgy and Bess’ (1959) and ‘Irma La Douce’ (1963). After leaving Hollywood, Previn also turned away from jazz, partly because he feared it would diminish his credibility among classical musicians.
