Sept. 7: Arthur Ferrante of Ferrante and Teicher was born on this day in 1921...

... he died September 19, 2009.

Ferrante & Teicher were a team of piano players, known for their light arrangements of familiar classical pieces, movie soundtracks, and show tunes.


Arthur Ferrante, born in New York City met Louis Teicher while studying at the Juilliard School of Music in New York. They began performing as a piano duo while still in school. After graduating, they both joined the Juilliard faculty.

In 1947, they launched a full-time concert career, at first playing nightclubs, then quickly moving up to playing classical music with orchestral backing. Between 1950 and 1980, they were a major American easy listening act, and scored four big U.S. hits: "Theme From The Apartment," "Exodus," "Tonight," and "Midnight Cowboy." They performed and recorded regularly with pops orchestras popular standards by George Gershwin, Jerome Kern, Cole Porter, Richard Rodgers and others.


The duo also experimented with changing the sounds the pianos by adding paper, sticks, rubber, wood blocks, metal bars, chains, glass, mallets, and other objects to the piano string beds - producing bizarre sounds that resembled percussion instruments and special effects.


Ferrante and Teicher ceased performing in 1989 and Arthur retired to Longboat Key, Florida. Teicher also moved to Florida and they continued to play piano together at a local piano store.


Louis Teicher died in 2008, three weeks before his 84th birthday. Arthur Ferrante died on September 19, 2009 at 88. He once said he wanted to live one year for each piano key.

Press links below to view You Tube videos:
-- "Theme from Exodus"
-- "Theme from Midnight Cowboy"
-- "Theme from Lawrence Of Arabia"