Lee Holdridge

Lee Holdridge is an American composer, conductor, and orchestrator born on March 3, 1944, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, to a Puerto Rican mother and an American father, Leslie Holdridge, a botanist and climatologist. His Broadway credits include Into the Light, for which he served as book writer.

Holdridge began his musical education at age ten while living in Costa Rica, studying violin under Hugo Mariani, who served as conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra of Costa Rica at the time. He later relocated to Boston, where he completed high school and studied composition with Henry Lasker. After moving to New York City, he pursued further study through consultations with composer Nicolas Flagello and composer-lyricist Stephen Sondheim.

His time in New York allowed Holdridge to build a professional career, during which he composed chamber works, rock pieces, songs, theater music, and background scores for short films. This work brought him to the attention of Neil Diamond, who invited Holdridge to Los Angeles to write arrangements for his upcoming albums. The collaboration produced several gold and platinum recordings and extended to the score for Hall Bartlett's film adaptation of Jonathan Livingston Seagull. Diamond subsequently contested the shared musical credit, but the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences ruled in Holdridge's favor, establishing that the background score had been composed and adapted by both Diamond and Holdridge jointly.

Over the following decades, Holdridge composed and orchestrated scores for a wide range of films, including Jeremy (1973), The Beastmaster (1982), Mr. Mom (1983), Splash (1984), Micki and Maude (1984), Old Gringo (1989), The Adventures of Pinocchio (1996), Into Thin Air: Death on Everest (1997), Into the Arms of Strangers: Stories of the Kindertransport (2000), and Brothers at War (2009), among many others. His television work spans numerous series and productions, including Moonlighting, Beauty and the Beast, Eight is Enough, East of Eden, The Mists of Avalon, The Brooke Ellison Story, and When Calls the Heart.

Holdridge has also composed an extensive catalog of concert works, including three violin concertos, a viola concerto, a cello concertino, the opera Lazarus and His Beloved, and Dulce Rosa, an opera based on a short story by Isabel Allende that premiered in 2013. Additional concert works include Trinity for the Joffrey Ballet, co-authored with Alan Raph, and the Jefferson Tribute for narrator and orchestra.

His work in television has earned him eighteen Emmy Award nominations, resulting in two Primetime Emmy Awards, two Daytime Emmy Awards, two News and Documentary Emmy Awards, and one Sports Emmy Award. He has also received two Grammy Award nominations. Holdridge is married to former ballet dancer Elisa Justice, who serves as western region audition co-director of the Metropolitan Opera National Council, has hosted a classical music radio program titled Eclectic Classics, and received a Best Producer award at the Madrid International Film Festival for a documentary co-produced with Milt Okun.