Alexsander Courage and Orchestra

Courage began as an orchestrator/arranger at MGM studios, which included work in such films as Show Boat ("Life Upon the Wicked Stage" number), The Band Wagon ("I Guess I'll Have to Change My Plan") and Gigi (the can-can for the entrance of patrons at Maxim's), and the barn-raising dance from Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. He frequently served as orchestrator for Andre Previn (My Fair Lady, the "The Circus is a Wacky World" and "You're Gonna Hear from Me" production numbers for Inside Daisy Clover)...

Courage began as an orchestrator/arranger at MGM studios, which included work in such films as Show Boat ("Life Upon the Wicked Stage" number), The Band Wagon ("I Guess I'll Have to Change My Plan") and Gigi (the can-can for the entrance of patrons at Maxim's), and the barn-raising dance from Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. He frequently served as orchestrator for Andre Previn (My Fair Lady, the "The Circus is a Wacky World" and "You're Gonna Hear from Me" production numbers for Inside Daisy Clover), Adolph Deutsch (Funny Face, Some Like it Hot), John Williams (Superman, The Poseidon Adventure, Jurassic Park, and the Academy Award-nominated musical films Tom Sawyer, and Fiddler on the Roof), and Jerry Goldsmith (The Mummy, Mulan, Rudy, et al.). Apart from his work as a highly respected orchestrator, Courage also contributed original dramatic scores to films, including two important 1950s westerns, Arthur Penn's Left Handed Gun and Andre de Toth's Day of the Outlaw. He continued writing music for films throughout the 1990s - including the score for Superman IV: The Quest for Peace. Television work He is probably best known for writing the theme music to the original Star Trek television series, but also worked as composer on such shows as Lost in Space, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Judd, for the Defense, and Daniel Boone. Words were written for Courage's Star Trek theme by creator Gene Roddenberry, not because Roddenberry ever expected the words to be sung, but because by claiming acknowledgement as the co-writer he earned half of the royalties from the song.[1] Jerry Goldsmith and Courage also teamed on the long-running TV show The Waltons, in which Goldsmith composed the theme and Courage scored the Aaron Copland-influenced incidental music. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License and may also be available under the GNU FDL..