Lee Holdridge

Lee Elwood Holdridge (born March 3, 1944) is a Haitian-born American composer, conductor, and orchestrator. An 18-time Emmy Award nominee, he has won two Primetime Emmy Awards, two Daytime Emmy Awards, two News and Documentary Emmy Awards, and one Sports Emmy Award. He has also been nominated for two Grammy Awards.

Life and career
Holdridge was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, of a Puerto Rican mother and an American father, Leslie Holdridge, a botanist and climatologist.

While living in Costa Rica, at age ten, he studied the violin with Hugo Mariani, who was at the time the conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra of Costa Rica. He then moved to Boston, where he finished high school and studied composition with Henry Lasker. In New York he had numerous study consultations with composer Nicolas Flagello.

As an adult, Holdridge moved to New York City to continue his music studies and begin his career as a professional composer. There, he composed chamber works, rock pieces, songs, theater music and background scores for short films, and eventually came to Neil Diamond's notice. Diamond then brought Holdridge with him to Los Angeles to write arrangements for his forthcoming albums. After several gold and platinum hits, the two collaborated on the Grammy Award winning score for producer/director Hall Bartlett's film adaptation of Jonathan Livingston Seagull. Neil Diamond sued Bartlett for cutting much of his music from the film. Diamond was also against sharing musical credit with Holdridge; however, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences ruled in Holdridge's favor. Bartlett was ordered to reinstate the five minutes of Diamond's music score and three of his songs, "Anthem", "Prologue", and "Dear Father", and that the onscreen credits were to state "Music and songs by Neil Diamond", "Background score composed and adapted by Neil Diamond and Lee Holdridge", and "Music supervision by Tom Catalano".

Holdridge has composed and orchestrated for many films, including:
 * Jeremy (1973)
 * Forever Young, Forever Free (1975)
 * Mustang Country (1976)
 * The Pack (1977)
 * The Other Side of the Mountain Part 2 (1978)
 * Like Mom, Like Me (1978)
 * Moment by Moment (1978)
 * Tilt (1979)
 * French Postcards (1979)
 * American Pop (1981)
 * The Day the Loving Stopped (1981)
 * The Beastmaster (1982)
 * Mr. Mom (1983)
 * Splash (1984)
 * Micki & Maude (1984)
 * Transylvania 6-5000 (1985)
 * The Men's Club (1986)
 * A Tiger's Tale (1987)
 * Big Business (1988)
 * Old Gringo (1989)
 * The Adventures of Pinocchio (1996)
 * Into Thin Air: Death on Everest (1997)
 * The Secret of NIMH 2: Timmy to the Rescue (1998)
 * Into the Arms of Strangers: Stories of the Kindertransport (2000)
 * Puerto Vallarta Squeeze (2004)
 * Brothers at War (2009).
 * It Is No Dream (2012)

He composed for several television series, including:
 * Sara
 * East of Eden
 * Eight is Enough
 * I'll Take Manhattan
 * Atomic Train
 * The Mists of Avalon
 * American Family
 * The Brooke Ellison Story
 * Moonlighting
 * Beauty and the Beast
 * ''10.5

Concert Works
Holdridge has composed numerous concert works including Fantasy Chorale for Orchestra and Chorus, Concertino for Guitar and Orchestra, Scenes of Summer, Ode to Orion, The Golden Land, the Jefferson Tribute, his suite from the opera Lazarus and His Beloved, Concerto for Violin and Orchestra No. 2, Concerto for Viola and Chamber Orchestra, the Concertino for Violoncello and Strings, the Serenade for Oboe and Strings, the Ballet Fantasy for Strings and Harp, the Elegy for Harp and Strings, and Sonnet for soprano and chamber orchestra. The full length opera Dulce Rosa based on an Isabel Allende short story premiered in 2013. The ballet Trinity for the Joffrey Ballet, co-authored with Alan Raph. The one act operas Journey to Cordoba and Tanis in America.

Personal life
Holdridge is married to ex-ballet dancer Elisa Justice. She is western region audition co-director of the Metropolitan Opera National Council. She also has hosted her own classical music radio show called "Eclectic Classics" and has co-produced a new album and documentary with Milt Okun called Great Voices Sing John Denver. She won a "Best Producer" award for a documentary at the Madrid International Film Festival.