Elliot Goldenthal (born May 2, 1954) is an American composer of contemporary classical music. He was a student of Aaron Copland and John Corigliano, and is best known for his distinctive style and ability to blend various musical styles and techniques in original and inventive ways. He is also a film-music composer, and won the Academy Award for Best Original Score in 2002 for his score to the motion picture Frida, directed by his long-time partner Julie Taymor.
Goldenthal was born on May 2, 1954, as the youngest son of a Jewish housepainter father and a Catholic seamstress mother in Brooklyn, New York City, where he was influenced from an early age by music from all cultures and genres. Both pairs of Goldenthal's grandparents emigrated to the United States from Bucharest and Iași, Romania.[1] Goldenthal lived in a multi-cultural part of town, and this is reflected in his works.[2] He attended John Dewey High School in Brooklyn where, at the age of 14, he had his very first ballet Variations on Early Glimpses performed; he continued to display his eclectic musical range, performing with rock bands in the seventies.[citation needed] He then studied music full time at the prestigious Manhattan School of Music, where he studied with composer John Corigliano (whom he greatly admired), to earn his Bachelor of Music degree (1977) and Master of Music (1979) in musical composition.[3][4][not in citation given]
He lives in New York City "happily unmarried", as he once put it,[5] with his partner Julie Taymor, whom he met in 1980 through a mutual acquaintance, who told him "I know a person whose work is just as grotesque as yours"; they have an office/apartment where they both live and work.[6]
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