Hal Willner

Hal Willner is among the most eclectic and wildly original music producers in contemporary music. Growing up in the late sixties and early seventies, he turned his childhood obsessions of TV variety shows, sixties FM and old time radio, comedy albums, and any music that his classmates hated into a inimitable career. Best known for his multi-artist concept records interpreting the music of Nino Rota, Thelonious Monk, Kurt Weill, film music of Walt Disney, and Charles Mingus, his productions also include records by Marianne Faithfull, Lou Reed, Allen Ginsberg, Laurie Anderson, and William S. Burroughs. In television, Willner has been providing “sketch music adaptations” for NBC’s Saturday Night Live for the past twenty three seasons. He was Music Producer on the legendary show Night Music and on the film soundtracks to Short Cuts, Kansas City, Million Dollar Hotel, Finding Forrester, and Gangs of New York. At UCLA Live he has produced The Harry Smith Project (April 2001) and (with Janine Nichols) two Halloween evenings of Edgar Allan Poe (October 2001 and 2002). Pomegranate Arts was honored to work with Hal on the now legendary “Came So Far for Beauty, An Evening of Leonard Cohen Songs” originally produced in Brooklyn in 2003.