Peter Matz, 73; Musician Won Emmys, Raised Funds for AIDS

Peter Matz, musical director, composer, arranger, orchestrator and conductor for Broadway, Hollywood and--most prolifically--television, who earned Emmys for programs featuring Barbra Streisand, Burt Bacharach and Carol Burnett, has died. He was 73.

Matz was also an accomplished pianist who in recent years accompanied his wife, singer Marilynn Lovell, at fund-raising concerts to benefit AIDS victims.

He died Friday in Los Angeles of lung cancer, his publicist announced.

“ ‘Play’ is the operative word for musicians,” the witty Matz told The Times last year in what might have been a one-word description of his life and career. “They are playing.”

“I could be real obscure and say music is life,” he mused then. “Music is breathing. Music is about evolution. Music is about love. Music is about sadness. Music is all the emotions, in the same room, sometimes at the same time.”

Matz, known for inserting musical jokes into orchestrations that could break up even professional comedians such as Burnett, made a 50-year career out of musical play. And at the same time he was amusing and delighting the singers he worked with and the audiences he entertained, he was earning their respect and accolades.

In his long association with Streisand, Matz won a Grammy for his arrangements on her 1964 album, “People”; an Emmy for her 1965 television special, “My Name Is Barbra”; and an Academy Award nomination for best original score for her 1975 film, “Funny Lady.” Matz arranged and conducted most of the material on Streisand’s first five albums for Columbia, including his composition “Gotta Move.”

He teamed with her again in 1986, earning another Grammy nomination for arranging, conducting and producing her platinum recording “The Broadway Album.”

Matz’s other two Emmys were for his work on the 1970 Kraft Music Hall presentation of “The Sound of Burt Bacharach” and a 1973 segment of “The Carol Burnett Show,” for which he was musical director for eight years.

The multifaceted musician garnered at least 10 other Emmy nominations for his contributions to more than 140 television movies and specials.

Born in Pittsburgh, Matz earned a degree in chemical engineering at UCLA in what he jokingly called his “terrible, misguided youth.” But during his college years, he made money playing woodwinds with area dance bands, and music rather than chemistry left the lasting impression.

After graduation, Matz went to Paris to immerse himself for two years in that city’s music scene.

He moved to New York in 1954 to study piano and music theory and soon got a job as rehearsal pianist for composer Harold Arlen’s Broadway musical “House of Flowers.”

The job expanded to writing orchestrations, vocal arrangements and dance music for Arlen’s next musical, “Jamaica,” starring Lena Horne.

Arlen became a mentor, and Matz worked with Horne for years. In 1965, Matz earned a Clio Award for a commercial she made.

It was Arlen who introduced Matz to Marlene Dietrich, who not only used his arrangements for her shows but introduced the composer to Noel Coward.

Matz was arranger and pianist for Coward’s celebrated engagement in the young Las Vegas of 1955 and then worked with Coward on Coward’s 1961 Broadway musical, “Sail Away.”

Among other well-known entertainers with whom Matz worked were Peggy Lee, Bing Crosby, Liza Minnelli, Tony Bennett, Sarah Vaughan, Dionne Warwick, Rosemary Clooney, Maureen McGovern, Bernadette Peters and Melissa Manchester.

In addition to his prodigious fund-raising concerts with his wife in recent years, Matz also became the musical engine of Los Angeles’ “Reprise! Broadway’s Best,” which since 1997 has staged revivals of historic Broadway musicals.

Artistic director Marcia Seligson last year credited much of the series’ success to Matz and his attention to historical musical detail--such as re-creating the original upbeat style of George and Ira Gershwin’s 1927 “The Man I Love.”

“Musical theater is really a native art form,” Matz said during those years, explaining why he devoted such efforts to the series, including the Gershwin musical. “It should be preserved for the same reason it’s important to preserve a Frank Lloyd Wright building or not let old movies decay in the can.”

Matz is survived by his wife; two sons from his first marriage, Zachary and Jonas; and one grandson.

Arrangements for services are pending. The family has asked that any memorial donations be made to Aid for AIDS.