Born in Ukraine, the composer and pianist Dimitri Tiomkin studied in St Petersburg with Blumenfeld and Glazunov, and with Busoni in Berlin, first embarking on a career as a concert pianist. In 1922 he settled in Paris but in 1929 moved with his choreographer wife to Hollywood, where he turned his attention to composition, first with scores for ballet films. After writing the music for the film Lost Horizon in 1937, he began a busy career as a film composer. In 1968 he moved to London, where he spent the last decade of his life.

Film Music
Tiomkin wrote music for over 140 films. His style was based on 19th-century Romanticism and his films included Red River (1948), Hitchcock’s Dial M for Murder (1954) and The Guns of Navarone (1961). He won two Academy awards for High Noon in 1952 and two further Oscars.