Michel LeGrand

Michel Legrand
Legrand in 2015 at the Cabourg Film Festival
Born	Michel Jean Legrand (1932-02-24) 24 February 1932 (age 84) Bécon les Bruyères (Courbevoie), France
Occupation	Film score composer Jazz pianist
Years active	1954–present

Michel Legrand (born 24 February 1932) is a French musical composer, arranger, conductor, and jazz pianist. Legrand is a prolific composer, having written over 200 film and television scores, in addition to many memorable songs. He is best known for his often haunting, jazz-tinged film music. His celebrated scores for the films of French New Wave director Jacques Demy, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964) and The Young Girls of Rochefort (1967), earned Legrand his first Academy Award nominations. For The Thomas Crown Affair (1968) and its title song, "The Windmills of Your Mind", Legrand won his first Oscar.

Legrand was born in the Bécon les Bruyères district of Courbevoie, a suburb of Paris. His father Raymond Legrand was a conductor and composer renowned for hits such as Irma la douce, and his mother was Marcelle Der Mikaëlian (sister of conductor Jacques Hélian), who married Legrand Senior in 1929. His maternal grandfather was of Armenian descent and considered a member of the bourgeoisie.

Legrand has composed more than two hundred film and television scores and several musicals and has made well over a hundred albums. He has won three Oscars (out of 13 nominations) and five Grammys and has been nominated for an Emmy. He was 22 when his first album, I Love Paris, became one of the best-selling instrumental albums ever released. He is a virtuoso jazz and classical pianist and an accomplished arranger and conductor who performs with orchestras all over the world.

He studied music at the Paris Conservatoire from 1943-50 (ages 11–18), working with, among others, Nadia Boulanger, who also taught many other composers, including Aaron Copland and Philip Glass, and Ástor Piazzolla. Legrand graduated with top honors as both a composer and a pianist.