Early life and education Schifrin was born in
Buenos Aires, Argentina, on June 21, 1932 as Boris Claudio. The nickname "Lalo" was the normal Argentine
diminutive for his second name, Claudio. When he came to the U.S., he changed his name to Lalo legally to simplify his contracts. His father, Luis Schifrin, led the second violin section of the
Buenos Aires Philharmonic for three decades. At the age of six, Schifrin began a six-year course of study on piano with Enrique Barenboim, the father of pianist and conductor
Daniel Barenboim. Schifrin began studying piano with the Greek-Russian expatriate Andrea Karalin, the onetime head of the
Kiev Conservatory and harmony with
Juan Carlos Paz.
1956–1963: Jazz composer After returning to Argentina in his twenties, Schifrin formed a jazz
big band Schifrin's "Tar Sequence" from his
Cool Hand Luke score (written in ) was the longtime theme for the
Eyewitness News broadcasts on New York station
WABC-TV and other ABC affiliates, as well as
Nine News in Australia; it was used into the 1990s. The jazzy
Bullitt
score for this
Peter Yates directed film was recorded in December of the same year. In 1973 he incorporated funk and traditional film score elements into soundtrack for the Bruce Lee film
Enter the Dragon. He composed the score by sampling sounds from
China,
Korea, and
Japan. The soundtrack has sold more than 500,000 copies, earning a
gold record. Schifrin's working score for 1973's
The Exorcist was rejected by the film's director,
William Friedkin. As reported by Schifrin in an interview,
Warner Bros. executives told Friedkin to instruct Schifrin to tone it down with softer music, but Friedkin did not relay the message. – ref lost--> He later reused the compositions in other scores. He also composed the 1976 fanfare for
Paramount Pictures, which was used mainly for their
home video label and was adapted for the
television division 11 years later until it was renamed to CBS Paramount Television (now
CBS Studios) in 2006. In 1981 he wrote the music for the slapstick comedy film
Caveman.
1990–2025: Final years In the 1990s, Schifrin wrote many of the arrangements for
The Three Tenors concerts, He founded Aleph Records in 1998. He is widely sampled in
hip-hop and
trip-hop songs including
Heltah Skeltah's "
Prowl" and
Portishead's "
Sour Times". Both songs sample Schifrin's "Danube Incident", one of many themes he composed for specific episodes of the
Mission: Impossible TV series. In 2003, Schifrin was commissioned to compose a classical work entitled
Symphonic Impressions of Oman by Sultan
Qaboos bin Said. In 2004, he wrote the main theme for ''
Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow'', a
stealth game published by
Ubisoft. On April 23, 2007, Schifrin presented a concert of film music for the Festival du Film Jules Verne Aventures (
Festival Jules Verne), at
Le Grand Rex theatre in Paris–Europe's biggest movie theater. It was recorded by festival leaders for a CD named
Lalo Schifrin: Le Concert à Paris. In 2010, a fictionalized account of Lalo Schifrin's creation of the "Theme from
Mission: Impossible" tune was featured in a
Lipton TV commercial aired in a number of countries around the world. After
Rod Schejtman won the 2024 Vienna WorldVision Composers Contest, Schifrin in 2024 invited him to jointly compose a symphony dedicated to their country. They composed a 35-minute symphony in three
movements, subtitled "Long Live Freedom",--> and fused cinematic and classical elements. The symphony premiered at the
Teatro Colón on April 5, 2025. == Personal life ==