Pulitzer Prize Winning Composer, Conductor, and Musical Arranger. His father was from Austria and worked in the real estate business and his mother was Russian. He was recognized at an early age as a child prodigy and published his first musical composition when he was only six years old. He studied at the Institute of Musical Art (later The Julliard School) in New York City, New York. During the early Depression years, he worked in New York City, playing the piano in movie theaters and vaudeville acts. When Radio City Music Hall in New York City first opened in December 1932, he was hired as the staff pianist and three years later he was conducting and arranging orchestral programs for WOR radio station in New York City. During the 1940s he appeared on the "Cresta Blanca Carnival" and "The Chrysler Hour" radio programs and composed the music for "Ring of Steel", a US Army recruiting film narrated by actor Spencer Tracy. His music was commissioned by symphony orchestras from all over the US, as well as the American Ballet Theatre, the New York City Ballet, the Library of Congress, and The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. He conducted all the major US orchestras as well as those in Europe, Canada, Japan, Mexico, and Australia. His Broadway work includes "Interplay" (1945), Billion Dollar Baby" (1945), "Arms and the Girl" (1950), and Jerome Robbins' Broadway" (1989). Among his film and television work includes the CBS television series "Casey, Crime Photographer" that aired from April 1951 until June 1952, "Cinerama Holiday" (1955), "Windjammer" (1958), and the CBS television series "World War One" that aired from 1964 to 1965. In 1995 he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Music for his composition of "Stringmusic" that was commissioned by the National Symphony Orchestra and dedicated to its conductor Mstislav Rostropovich. His other notable achievements include a Grammy Award for his recording of Charles Ives' "Symphony No. 1 in D Minor" (1966) with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the American Symphony Orchestra Leagues' Gold Baton Award (1983), election to the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters (1986), the Kennedy Center Honors (1994), and a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award (2005). From 1986 until 1994 he served as president of the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers. He died at the age of 82. His personal papers and manuscripts are contained in the Library of Congress in Washington, DC.