Don Sebesky

Don Sebesky (December 10, 1937 – April 29, 2023) was an American composer, arranger, conductor, jazz trombonist, and Broadway book writer born in Perth Amboy, New Jersey. A multi-instrumentalist, he was proficient on keyboards, electric piano, organ, accordion, and clavinet in addition to his primary instrument.

Sebesky studied trombone at the Manhattan School of Music and launched his performing career playing alongside Kai Winding, Claude Thornhill, Tommy Dorsey, Warren Covington, Maynard Ferguson, and Stan Kenton. By 1960 he had shifted his focus predominantly to arranging and conducting. Among his most recognized arrangements was the orchestration for Wes Montgomery's 1965 album Bumpin'. He also contributed arrangements to George Benson's The Shape of Things to Come, Paul Desmond's From the Hot Afternoon, and Freddie Hubbard's First Light. His composition "Memphis Two-Step" served as the title track of Herbie Mann's 1971 album of the same name, and his 1973 album Giant Box reached number 16 on the U.S. Billboard Jazz Albums chart. In 1975 he authored The Contemporary Arranger, published with three accompanying LP phonograph records.

Over the course of his career Sebesky arranged for a wide range of artists, including Barbra Streisand, Tony Bennett, Christina Aguilera, Britney Spears, John Pizzarelli, Michael Bublé, Liza Minnelli, Seal, and Prince. He also collaborated with major orchestras including the London Symphony, the Chicago Symphony, the Boston Pops, the New York Philharmonic, the Royal Philharmonic of London, and the Toronto Symphony.

His Broadway theater work encompassed orchestrations for Porgy and Bess (London production directed by Trevor Nunn), Sinatra at the Palladium, Sweet Charity, Kiss Me, Kate, Bells Are Ringing, Flower Drum Song, Parade, The Life, Cyrano, The Goodbye Girl, The Will Rogers Follies, Sinatra at Radio City, Pal Joey, Come Fly Away, Baby It's You!, Honeymoon in Vegas, and Prince of Central Park. Sebesky received the Tony Award for Best Orchestrations for the revival of Kiss Me, Kate in 2000 and received an additional Tony Award for Best Orchestrations in 2015. He won the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Orchestrations twice, for Parade in 1999 and for Kiss Me, Kate in 2000.

Sebesky accumulated thirty-one Grammy nominations and won three Grammy Awards during the 1990s: Best Instrumental Arrangement for "Waltz for Debby" in 1998, and both Best Instrumental Arrangement for "Chelsea Bridge" and Best Instrumental Composition for "Joyful Noise Suite" in 1999. His television work earned three Emmy nominations, for Allegra's Window on Nickelodeon, The Edge of Night on ABC, and Guiding Light on CBS. His film scoring credits include The People Next Door (1970), F. Scott Fitzgerald and 'The Last of the Belles' (1974), and The Rosary Murders (1987).

Sebesky married Janina Serden in 1986; together they had two daughters, Olivia and Elizabeth. He also had two sons, Ken and Kevin, and two daughters, Ali and Cymbaline, from a previous marriage. He died on April 29, 2023, in Maplewood, New Jersey, at the age of 85.