Alf Clausen

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Alf Heiberg Clausen (born March 28, 1941) is an American film and television composer.

He is best known for his role in many episodes of The Simpsons, of which he was the sole composer from 1990 to 2017.

Clausen has performed or orchestrated music for more than 30 films and television shows, including Moonlighting, The Naked Gun, ALF, and Ferris Bueller's Day Off.

Clausen received an Honorary Doctorate of Music from the prestigious Berklee College of Music in 1996.

Early life, family and education

Clausen was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and raised in Jamestown, North Dakota. Clausen was an avid fan of music from a young age. Henry Mancini is one of his heroes, according to his book Sounds and Scores, who inspired him. He began playing the French horn in the seventh grade and later learned piano; and he performed in his high school choir. He continued playing and learned to play the bass guitar, but stopped singing because the band and the choir met at the same time as the band.

He studied mechanical engineering at North Dakota State University but, after being inspired by his pianist cousin, he changed his major to musical theory. Clausen took a correspondence course at Berklee College of Music in Boston, to learn about jazz and big band writing. He went on to complete his master's degree at University of Wisconsin–Madison, but he resigned because of the location's "anti-jazz" attitude, as well as what he disliked. In 1966, he attended Berklee and obtained a diploma in planning and composition. Clausen was the first French horn player to attend the college and performed in several ensembles; he has also appeared on several Jazz in the Classroom albums.

Personal life

Scott von Clausen's son is also a composer.

Clausen revealed in April 2020 that he had been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease.

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Career

Clausen spent time as a singer after college. Clausen taught at Berklee for a year.

Clausen moved to Los Angeles, California, in 1967, in search of television work, aspiring to be a full-time composer. He performed as a mentor, music editor, and a bassist for nine years. He appeared on "Come On Get Happy," the Partridge Family's theme tune. He became a score writer and later became the music director and conductor for Donny & Marie between 1976 and 1979. He was asked to create an emergency chart for the next day, but before he was fired as a score writer and began writing and conducting on the show, Tommy Oliver was fired as the show's conductor. Clausen flew from Los Angeles to record the score every week as the show moved to Utah. In 1979, he appeared in The Mary Tyler Moore Hour. In 1981, he was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Achievement In Music Direction for Omnibus.

Clausen appeared on Moonlighting from 1985 to 1989, scoring 63 of the 65 episodes. His top episode to watch was "The Dream Sequence Always Rings Twice," which featured two lengthy black and white dream sequences as well as the episode "Atomic Shakespeare," which was also a fantasy story. In 1986 and 1987, he received an Emmy Award for each episode in the category Outstanding Achievement In Music Composition For A Series (Dramatic Underscore), earning two more nominations over the next two years for "Here's Living with You, Kid" and "A Womb With A View." He was also nominated for Outstanding Achievement In Music Direction in 1988 and 1989. He served as the composer on ALF from 1986 to 1990.

Other television productions included Wizards and Warriors (1983), Fame (1984), Lime Street (1985), As well as the television films Murder in Three Acts (1986), My First Love (1988), and the feminist film Number One (1989), a Police Story (1987). He also supervised the orchestras and, for some, provided additional music for many films, including The Beastmaster (1982), Splash (1984), Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986), and The Naked Gun (1988).

Clausen was unemployed for seven months following the ALF's closure. Clausen's friend recommended that he be connected to a producer from Fox's animated film The Simpsons who was looking for a new composer. Clausen had "no interest in doing animation" and "wanted to be a drama composer." However, show creator Matt Groening told him, "We don't think of this as a cartoon but a drama where the characters are drawn, and we'd like it to be scored that way." Clausen began working as a child. Groening told Clausen that the "emotion [should] be] first and the performance came second" unlike some other cartoons, and that "scoring the emotions of the characters" was the primary aim for The Simpsons. In 1990, Clausen's first episode, "Treehouse of Horror," was the third episode of season two. It was an audition and he was hired on a permanent basis after that. He has since scored the majority of the show's recordings, as well as a variety of musical styles, including jazz and pop.

He conducted a 35-piece orchestra for the music, an unheardance for television shows, and compiled the score for an episode every week. Clausen wrote an episode's score during the week and recorded it on Friday, with some variation if vocals are required. Clausen's limited timeframe was the most difficult part of his job; he was once expected to write 57 musical cues in a week. Clausen's book adaptations are much longer; Clausen converts the songs to the writers' words, over seven or eight months, and Clausen can re-record the song with a complete orchestra. The complete orchestra makes it possible to change between the show's diverse musical styles.

Clausen noted:

Clausen deliberately avoided writing themes for each individual, with some exceptions like Mr. Burns, but rather "gives] each story its own theme and thematic expansion." He supplements the orchestra with extra brass for the episode "Cape Feare," which Clausen created Sideshow Bob's theme, and which continues to be performed in future episodes as Bob comes out of jail. It is based on Bernard Herrmann's score to the film Cape Fear. The writers' musical demands range from recording a specific piece of music to writing something based on this character's mood in a scene.

Clausen has received two Primetime Emmy Awards for his work on The Simpsons, as well as two years in a row for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Music and Lyrics. The first was for "We Put The Spring In Springfield" from the 1997 episode "Bart After Dark," and the second was for "You're Checkin In" from the 1998 episode "The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson"; Ken Keeler wrote the lyrics for each song. In 1994, 1995, 1996, 2002, 2003, 2004, and 2005, he was nominated in the category a seventh time. Clausen has received twelve awards for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Music Composition for a Series (Dramatic Underscore) from 1992 to 2011, and has twice been nominated for Outstanding Music Direction in 1997 and 1998. Clausen has more Emmy nominations than any other artist.

He has received five Annie Awards for his work on The Simpsons. He received the Best Music in a TV Production award in 1997 for "Behind the Laughter," the same award for Best Music in an Animated Television Production in 2000. Where's My Ranch?" "I'm still searching for "Yokel Chords" in 2007 and again in 2007.

His work on the show has been published as part of three albums released by Clausen: Songs in the Key of Springfield (1997), Go Simpsons (1999) and The Simpsons (2007). Clausen was not asked to write the film version of the program, but Hans Zimmer was not allowed to do so, since he was working. "You're the windshield, but you're the spider," he said.

Clausen scored The Critic from 1994 to 1995 and Bette in 2000 while on The Simpsons. He also appeared in Half Baked, 1998. After self-financing it, he released the album Swing Can Really Hang Up The Most in 2003, containing the arrangements he made throughout his career, performed by his jazz orchestra.

Clausen was named the Best Note Award in 2011 by the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers. Paul Williams, president of ASCAP, said that his "decades of scores for The Simpsons and other television shows and films are as diverse as the show's writers and animators' imaginations. To produce, arrange, and perform such lovely songs, it takes a lot of hard work and determination."

Clausen was dropped from the show on August 30, 2017, after 27 years of scoring for The Simpsons, with claims that the reasons were mostly financial. "Dogtown" was his last complete score. However, the show's producers announced that following Clausen's departure, he will "continue to play a continuing role." Bleeding Fingers Music took over scoring starting with Season 29, with Clausen dubbed "Composer Emeritus" in honor of the title. He is credited with composing the music for the episode "Whistler's Father."

Clausen, who said he was fired due to ageism, announced on August 5, 2019. Clausen would abandon the suit completely in January 2022 after a portion was disregarded in August 2020.

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