Francis Lai › Similar Artists

Piero Piccioni - 77% match to Francis Lai

6 December 1921, Turin, Italy, d. 23 July 2004, Rome, Italy. Also known as Peter Piccioni and Piero Morgan. Piccioni studied law in Florence but was more interested in music. He first played piano professionally in the late 30s and over the next few years played in a jazz band. In the post-war years, using the name Piero Morgan, he led an orchestra on radio from Rome. Soon, Read more

Piero Umiliani - 62% match to Francis Lai

Gianni Ferrio - 61% match to Francis Lai

Michel Legrand - 61% match to Francis Lai

24 February 1932, Paris, France. Legrand grew up in a musical environment - his father was an orchestra leader and film composer - and studied formally at the Paris Conservatoire. In the 50s he was an active pianist but was most successful as an arranger. Later in the decade he moved to New York and continued to arrange, but now with a strong orientation towards the contempo Read more

Georges Delerue - 49% match to Francis Lai

12 March 1925, Roubaix, France, d. 20 March 1992, Los Angeles, California, USA. An important composer of film music for well over 150 features, from the early 50s through to the 90s. Delerue won a scholarship to the prestigious Paris Conservatoire, where he was encouraged to develop his interest in music for the screen. In 1952 Delerue composed new scores for two early 20s s Read more

Maurice Jarre - 40% match to Francis Lai

13 September 1924, Lyons, France. An important composer for films for over 40 years, as a youngster Jarre intended to become an electrical engineer, but changed his mind and studied music at the Paris Conservatoire in 1944. He joined the orchestra of the Jean Louise Barrault Theatre, and in 1951, composed the music for Kleist’sLe Prince De Homburg. Soon afterwards he mo Read more

Paul Mauriat - 40% match to Francis Lai

4 March 1925, Marseille, France, d. 3 November 2006, Perpignan, France. A conductor, arranger and composer, descended from generations of classical musicians, Mauriat began to study music at the age of four, and continued his studies at the Conservatoire in Paris when his family moved there in 1935. His initial ambition to become classical pianist gave way to an interest in Read more

Alessandro Alessandroni - 39% match to Francis Lai

Nelson Riddle - 39% match to Francis Lai

Nelson Smock Riddle, 1 June 1921, Oradell, New Jersey, USA, d. 6 October 1985, Los Angeles, California, USA. After studying piano, Riddle took up the trombone when in his early teens, and in the late 30s played in a number of big bands, including those led by Jerry Wald, Charlie Spivak, Tommy Dorsey and Bob Crosby. After a stint in the army, he settled in California and stud Read more

Fausto Papetti - 34% match to Francis Lai

Elmer Bernstein - 33% match to Francis Lai

4 April 1922, New York City, New York, USA, d. 18 August 2004, Ojai, California, USA. An important and prolific arranger/conductor and composer of over 200 film scores. Bernstein was hailed as a ‘musical genius’ in the classical field at the age of 12. Despite being a talented actor, dancer and painter, he devoted himself to becoming a concert pianist and toured na Read more

Franck Pourcel - 33% match to Francis Lai

1 January 1915, Marseilles, France, d. 12 November 2000, Paris, France. With the violin his chosen instrument, Pourcel found playing in downtime jazz combos a liberating change from his studies at the Paris Conservatoire. He became an admirer of Stéphane Grappelli whose mainstream style he emulated before assuming leadership of the French Fiddlers in the late 40s. Sig Read more

Percy Faith - 32% match to Francis Lai

7 April 1908, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, d. 9 February 1976, Ericino, California, USA. During the 30s Faith worked extensively on radio in Canada, and moved to the USA in 1940 to take up a post with NBC. During the 50s he was musical director for Columbia Records, for whom he made a number of popular albums, mostly of mood music. He worked with Tony Bennett, with whom he had Read more

James Last - 28% match to Francis Lai

Hans Last, 17 April 1929, Bremen, Germany. This phenomenally successful band leader and arranger brought up to date the tradition of big band arrangements for current pop hits, and has been rewarded with worldwide sales in excess of 50 million copies. Trained as a bass player, in 1946 he joined Hans-Gunther Oesterreich’s Radio Bremen Dance Orchestra. Two years later he Read more

Ennio Morricone - 27% match to Francis Lai

10 November 1928, Rome, Italy. A distinguished and prolific composer, whose revolutionary scores for ‘spaghetti westerns’ helped make him one of the most influential figures in the film music world, Morricone has scored hundreds of films in a career stretching over 40 years. Morricone studied trumpet and composition at Rome’s Conservatory of Santa Cecilia, bef Read more