Think Hollywood and show music, and one of the first names that comes to mind is Henry Mancini. Such recognition is not surprising, considering that he won 20 Grammy Awards and four Academy Awards and was nominated for dozens more, a record few composers will be able to touch. But his most important legacy lives in the tunes that he left behind, including his most famous - "Moon River" from "Breakfast at Tiffany's." Since it became a top 40 hit and won Mancini an Oscar in 1961 for best song, it has been recorded by more than 1,000 musical acts of all types.
The Omaha Symphony SuperPops will pay tribute Friday and Saturday to Mancini, who died in 1994, a year after his last Nebraska appearance with the Lincoln Symphony Orchestra in the Lied Center for Performing Arts. Mancini was an active conductor, and he probably would have been asked to lead this week's program had he still been around. In his stead, the symphony has turned to drummer and conductor Michael Berkowitz, one of Mancini's longtime associates. After studying music at Indiana University, Berkowitz toured with such artists as Johnny Mathis and Mancini. It was Manicini who persuaded Berkowitz to move to Los Angeles, where he became one of the city's busiest studio musicians. Berkowitz later worked extensively with Nelson Riddle and served as Marvin Hamlisch's music director for nine years after moving to New York in 1980. He made his pops coducting debut in 1989 with the London Symphony, and such engagements have become a regular part of his career.
Joining Berkowitz for this week's concerts will be drummer Jack Gilfoy and trumpeter Cecil Welch, two Mancini regulars who were with him when he led the Omaha Symphony in a cabaret concert in May 1990 at Ak-Sar-Ben. Mancini was active unitl his death, working on, among other thing, a Broadway adaptation of Victor/Victoria," a Blake Edwards film for which he wrote the score. After he left studio work to become an independent composer in 1958, he wrote at least one more film score each subsequent year. "Why stop?" he said in a 1990 World-Herald interview. "There is so much professionally that can be done, and you never know where it's coming from."
Kyle McMillan, World Herald
