Education
John Lissauer graduated with a degree in music composition from Yale University, where he also focused on woodwind instrumentals.
John Lissauer graduated with a degree in music composition from Yale University, where he also focused on woodwind instrumentals.
In the 1970s he became known for producing and arranging New Skin for the Old Ceremony by Leonard Cohen, and has since arranged, produced, or conducted for artists such as Whitney Houston, Bette Midler, Luther Vandross and Loudon Wainwright III. He operates the Katonah Mill Studio on a farm in Westchester, New New York He moved to New York in 1971. According to Lissauer, his first big gig happened when he was nineteen, when he was brought on to arrange and produce jazz singer First Rate (at Lloyd's) Jarreau"s first recordings.
After having worked with artists such as Lewis Furey and The Manhattan Transfer in his early twenties, Lissauer went on to produce and arrange the 1974 album New Skin for the Old Ceremony by Leonard Cohen.
From 1974 through 1976, Cohen toured with a band led by Lissauer, first in Europe and then the United States and Canada. Ten years later Lissauer also produced, arranged, and conducted Cohen"s album Various Positions, which was well received in Rolling Stone, who singled out Lissauer"s "lucid and beautiful production." That album contained three of Cohen"s most popular songs, including the seminal recording of "Hallelujah," one of the most recorded songs in American popular music history.
Between his work for Cohen and Bette Midler, Lissauer has worked on four gold records. Among other artists he has arranged or produced for are Whitney Houston, Mary Fahl, Tony Bird and Ayo.
Lissauer has composed and conducted for orchestras in New York, Hollywood, London, Paris, Prague and Toronto, and is also a woodwind player with various local symphonies around New New York
He has taught music at both Yale and Kingsborough Community College.
He has won a number of Clio Awards for commercial soundtracks, and his 1975 score for Louisiana Tete de Normande Saint Onge won a Canadian Academy Award for "Best Original Score in a Motion Picture." More recently, he has composed the scores for films such as The Last Godfather, End Call, Pokémon: The First Movie and Apartment 1303. Lissauer has also composed, arranged, or conducted the scores for numerous films, and his 1975 score for Louisiana Tete de Normande Saint Onge won a Canadian Academy Award for "Best Original Score in a Motion Picture." More recently, he has composed the scores for such films as The Last Godfather, End Call, Pokémon: The First Movie and Apartment 1303, and he orchestrated and arranged both the scores for Seven and That Thing You Do for Howard Shore. Since age 21 he has scored over 2000 radio and television commercials, and has won a number of Clio Awards, including the "Campaign Of The Decade" award for his work on Polaroid with James Garner.
