User:Larrycansler

Larry Cansler American Composer

Larry Cansler is a highly-respected composer, arranger, conductor, music director, and pianist who has collaborated with such acts as, Kenny Rogers, Michael Martin Murphey, Mason Williams, The Jackson Five, Collin Raye, The Stan Kenton Orchestra, and many others. He has contributed scores to several films and dramatic television series, as well as for over 700 commercial advertisements. He has conducted the Atlanta, Houston, Nashville, Utah, Colorado Springs, Eugene, Seattle, Tucson, and Salt Lake City Symphonies, as well as the New American Orchestra (now known as the American Jazz Philharmonic), from which he has had works commissioned. Larry has also produced three recordings of his own instrumental music, released in 1987, 1988 and 1990 on the Skyrider and Voss Record labels.

Larry started his professional career as an arranger for Stan Kenton's orchestra. At the same time, he was majoring in music composition at North Texas State University. Originally a native Texan, he migrated to California after serving in the United States Army. Shortly after arriving in Los Angeles, he hooked up with an old friend from Texas, Kenny Rogers. Rogers had just formed the band The First Edition and he asked Larry to come on board as musical director and arranger. It was during this time that he started writing with Michael Martin Murphey. They composed an 18-song rock opera for The First Edition called "The Ballad of Calico". It was also during this period that Cansler and Murphey penned the pop classic "Wildfire".

Larry arranged and conducted for many top groups during the seventies, including The Jackson Five and the Temptations. He also started composing film scores and during the next few years he composed the scores for many top rated movies and television shows including "The Gambler" series (starring Kenny Rogers), "The Smothers Brothers' Twentieth Reunion" on CBS, and "The Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton Christmas Special". He scored "Songwriter" starring Willie Nelson & Kris Kristofferson. He composed the music for the Academy Award Nominated short subject, "A Short Film On Solar Energy" produced and directed by Robert Redford, and he received an Emmy nomination for his main theme for the "CBS Sports Spectacular".

In 1986 he composed his first symphony after receiving a grant from the Foundation for New American Music. His symphony, entitled "Mojave", was inspired by his love of flying. The piece included a text written by John Stewart, and was narrated by Mercury Astronaut Scott Carpenter. "Mojave" was premiered at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles and has been performed at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.. These days Larry lives in Arizona with his wife Lynn, a registered nurse. He has two grown daughters from a previous marriage, Amanda and Erin. Larry has been a pilot for over twenty-five years and still enjoys announcing airshows around the country. In addition to arranging and conducting for Collin Raye, he is still busy writing with Michael Martin Murphey and others.