Bernard Herrmann

Bernard Herrmann (June 29, 1911 – December 24, 1975) was an American composer and conductor best known for his pioneering film scores that revolutionized suspense and psychological cinema, including iconic works for directors Orson Welles, Alfred Hitchcock, and Martin Scorsese.

Born in New York City to Russian-Jewish immigrant parents Abraham Herrmann and Ida Gorenstein, Herrmann displayed musical talent from a young age, beginning violin studies at five and winning a composition prize at 13 while attending De Witt Clinton High School. He briefly studied at New York University under Philip James and Percy Grainger before transferring to the Juilliard School, where he worked with Bernard Wagenaar and Albert Stoessel, though he left in 1932 without graduating. By age 20, he had founded the New Chamber Orchestra of New York, marking his early conducting ambitions.

Bernard Herrmann was born Maximilian Herman on June 29, 1911, in New York City, to Russian Jewish immigrant parents Abraham and Ida Herrmann. His father, an optometrist who had immigrated from Ukraine after working on a whaling ship and earning a degree in optometry, provided early musical encouragement by giving Herrmann his first piano lessons. The family, part of the large wave of Eastern European Jewish immigrants to New York in the early 20th century, lived in a middle-class environment that supported Herrmann's budding interests despite not being particularly musical themselves.