Oscar-winning composer Andre Previn dead at 89

Andre Previn. Pic/AFP

Four-time Oscar-winning music composer Andre Previn is dead. He was 89. Previn's manager confirmed the news of the demise saying he breathed his last on Thursday at his home in Manhattan, reports nytimes.com.

Previn had composed music for dozens of movies. He won the Oscar for "Gigi", "Porgy & Bess", "Irma la Douce" and "My Fair Lady". He also made two albums with Dinah Shore and recorded a collection of Christmas carols with Julie Andrews and George Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" with Andre Kostelanetz. He also wrote songs and scores for 1950s films "Bad Day at Black Rock", "Designing Women" and "Hot Summer Nights".

But audiences knew him as well as a jazz pianist who appeared with Ella Fitzgerald, among others, and as a composer who turned out musicals, orchestral works, chamber music, operas and concertos. He was also the music director or principal conductor of half-a-dozen orchestras.

Critics described Previn as a "wunderkind in a turtleneck" and the "Mickey Mouse maestro" when he was in his 20s and 30s.

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