Percy Faith
Faith, Percy
Percy Faith. Conductor, arranger, composer, pianist, b Toronto 7 Apr 1908, naturalized US 1945, d Los Angeles 9 Feb 1976. He began playing violin at 7 and piano at 10 and performed 1920-7 as a silent-film accompanist in Toronto movie houses. He studied at the Canadian Academy and then, at 14, with Frank Welsman at the TCM. He made his Massey Hall debut in 1923 in Liszt's Hungarian Fantasy at a TCM annual concert.
A video of Percy Faith conducting the Grammy Award-winning "Theme from A Summer Place." From YouTube.
After an accident at 18 which severely burned his hands and ended his hopes for a concert career, Faith studied composition with Louis Waizman and began arranging for the hotel orchestras of Luigi Romanelli and Rex Battle. He also wrote arrangements 1929-32 for the CKNC radio orchestra of Geoffrey Waddington. His own radio career began at CKCL, where he was arranger-conductor for 'Simpsons' Opera Hour' in 1927 and other such programs. On CKCL in 1928 he was heard with the singer Joe Allabough in a duo known as Faith and Hope. He joined the CRBC (CBC) in Toronto in 1933 and was arranger-conductor 1935-8 of 'Gaiety and Romance,' 'Mardi Gras,' 'Cosmopolitans,' 'Streamline,' 'Bands across the Sea,' and 1938-40 of 'Music by Faith,' which also was broadcast in the USA on MBS.
Watch a video of Percy Faith conducting an orchestral version of the "Song from Moulin Rouge." From YouTube.
As a result of the program's US popularity, Faith moved to Chicago as music director 1940-7 of 'The Carnation Contented Hour' on NBC radio. Rising quickly to the front rank of US popular-music arrangers, he was employed variously as music director 1946-9 of Coca-Cola's 'The Pause That Refreshes' (CBS) and 1955-7 of 'The Woolworth Hour' (CBS) and as arranger-conductor for Columbia Records in New York 1950-9 and Los Angeles 1960-76. Faith returned to Canada often, directing Victory Bond Drive shows during World War II and later conducting concerts and CBC TV specials. In 1974 he established the Percy Faith Award for music students at the University of Toronto and similar awards at the University of Jerusalem and the University of Southern California.
Faith composed piano, choral, and orchestra works during the 1940s and won a $1000 prize in 1943 in Chicago for his operetta The Gandy Dancer. His publishers include Harms, Mutual Music, and Presser. (See Catalogue of Canadian Composers for his works prior to 1950.) He enjoyed success 1950-76 with pop-song collaborations and with the film scores Tammy Tell Me True (Universal 1961), I'd Rather Be Rich (Universal 1964), The Love Goddesses (Continental 1964), The Third Day (Paramount 1965), The Oscar (Universal 1966), and Love Me or Leave Me (MGM 1955), the last of which was written with Georgie Stoll and nominated in 1955 for an Academy Award.
Faith worked with many popular singers for Columbia Records - eg, adapting a French folksong in collaboration with Carl Sigman for Guy Mitchell's first success, 'My Heart Cries For You' (1950), and arranging 'Because of You' (1951), 'Cold, Cold Heart' (1951), and 'Rags to Riches' (1953) for Tony Bennett. With his own orchestra and chorus Faith recorded the hit singles 'Delicado' (1952) and 'Song from Moulin Rouge' (1953) and the Grammy Award winners 'Theme from A Summer Place' (Record of the Year, 1960) and 'Love Theme from Romeo and Juliet' (Best Performance by a Chorus, 1969). His 45 albums include many of his film scores, his interpretations of major musicals, and three gold records, Viva (1957, reissued as 2-Col CG-33606), Bouquet (1959, Col CS-8124), and Themes for Young Lovers (1963, Col CS-8823).
More than 29,000 pages of Faith's compositions and arrangements have been deposited at Brigham Young, U, Provo, Ut.
Links to Other Sites
Song from Moulin Rouge
Watch a video of Percy Faith conducting an orchestral version of the "Song from Moulin Rouge." Check out the other Percy Faith videos on the right side of this page. From the YouTube website.
Theme from A Summer Place
A video of Percy Faith conducting the Grammy Award-winning theme from "A Summer Place." From YouTube.
Percy Faith
A brief profile of Percy Faith, acclaimed s composer, arranger and conductor. From the website for the Canadian Communications Foundation.
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