Ray Martin (5)

Austrian-British violinist, composer, arranger and conductor. Born: October 11, 1918 in Vienna, Austria Died: February 7, 1988 in Johannesburg, South Africa After studying music in the Vienna Academy of Music and Fine Arts, Martin came to live and work in England in 1937. His career was then interrupted by six years service in the British Army (1940-46), where he served in the Intelligence Corps. By 1949 Ray Martin was one of the top English composer-arranger-conductors and a household name in the British isles, via records, radio, television and motion pictures. He became the conductor of the BBC Variety Orchestra and also worked for EMI as a record producer and arranger. It is through his recordings that US-Americans first heard of him and began to love his compositions. From 1957, Martin lived and worked in New York; there, he worked on both Broadway and Hollywood productions. Martin composed more than 2000 works, many of which were recorded for RCA and Polydor. His use of pseudonyms has blurred the path of his career through the years, making his many contributions even harder to keep track of. But his original compositions are what really made him popular; tracks like "Marching Strings" have become stables of many public and city bands and orchestras since their release. He returned to the UK in 1972, but was comparatively unproductive. In 1980, he moved to South Africa, where he died in Johannesburg from cancer in 1988 at the age of 69.