Eldon Rathburn
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Eldon Davis Rathburn CM (21 April 1916 – 31 August 2008) was a Canadian film composer who scored over 250 films during his thirty-year tenure as a staff composer at the National Film Board of Canada. Known as "the dean of Canadian film composers",[1] Rathburn composed music for documentaries, short films, as well as such feature films as Drylanders (1963), Nobody Waved Good-bye (1964), Waiting for Caroline (1969), Cold Journey (1975), and Who Has Seen the Wind (1977). Rathburn was the subject of a 1995 NFB documentary by Louis Hone titled Eldon Rathburn: They Shoot... He Scores.
Rathburn was born in the community of Queenstown, in Queens County, New Brunswick, Canada. As a child he learned to play the piano.[2] Rathburn attended Saint John High School,[3] and received a Licentiate of Music from McGill University in 1937. The following year, he won the Canadian Performing Rights Society Scholarship Competition, and began performing on the piano for local dance bands and radio broadcasts, including with Don Messer.[3] In 1945 he received a Young Artist Award for composition from the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra. His winning composition, "Symphonette," was performed by the L.A. Philharmonic under the baton of Alfred Wallenstein on 23 March 1945. In L.A. he studied with Arnold Schoenberg, who had chaired the Young Artist Award adjudication committee.[4] From 1938–39, he studied at the Toronto Conservatory of Music with Healey Willan (composition), Reginald Godden (piano), Charles Peaker (organ), and Leo Smith (harmony).[5]
