Alf Clausen, Emmy-winning composer for The…
LOS ANGELES — Alf Clausen, the Emmy-winning composer whose music offered important accompaniment for the animated antics of “The Simpsons” for 27 years, has died.
His daughter Kaarin Clausen instructed The Associated Press that Alf Clausen died Thursday at his home in Los Angeles after struggling with Parkinson’s Disease for about a decade. He was 84.
Clausen, who also scored TV collection including “Moonlighting” and “Alf” (“no relation,” he used to joke) was nominated for 30 Emmy Awards, 21 of them for “The Simpsons,” successful twice.
Al Jean, an early “Simpsons” author who was one of the important thing artistic figures on the show in the Nineteen Nineties, stated in a post on X Friday that “Clausen was an incredibly talented man who did so much for The Simpsons.”
While Danny Elfman wrote the show’s theme music, Clausen joined the Fox animated collection created by Matt Groening in 1990 and offered primarily all of its music until 2017, composing almost 600 scores and conducting the 35-piece orchestra that performed it in the studio.
Emmy Award-winning composer Alf Clausen has died at 84. Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP
His colleagues stated his music was a key element of the show’s comedy, but Clausen believed the best method to back up the gags of Homer, Marge Bart and Lisa was by making the music as straight as doable.
“This is a dream job for a composer,” Clausen instructed Variety, which first reported his death, in 1998. “Matt Groening said to me very early on, ‘We’re not a cartoon. We’re a drama where the characters are drawn. I want you to score it like a drama.’ I score the emotions of the characters as opposed to specific action hits on the screen.”
Groening, in a 1996 interview, referred to as him “one of the unacknowledged treasures of the show.”
Clausen was born in Minneapolis and raised in Jamestown, North Dakota. He graduated from the Berklee College of Music in 1966, and moved to Los Angeles searching for a profession in music.
In the Nineteen Seventies he was a musical director on a number of TV selection exhibits including “Donny & Marie.”
Clausen labored as an orchestrator for composer Lee Holdridge in his scores for Eighties movies including “Splash” and “The Beastmaster.”
It was Holdridge who first obtained the composing job on “Moonlighting,” the late-80s ABC rom-com detective collection starring Bruce Willis and Cybil Shepherd, but he handed the gig off to Clausen, who would get six Emmy nominations for his music on it.
Clausen received his Emmys for “The Simpsons” in 1997 and 1998 and also received 5 Annie Awards, which honor work in animation in movie and tv.
He was fired from “The Simpsons” in a cost-cutting transfer in 2017, to the outrage of his collaborators and followers. He sued over his dismissal.
Clausen is survived by his spouse Sally, youngsters Kaarin, Scott and Kyle, stepchildren Josh and Emily, and 11 grandchildren.
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