Bronisław Kaper was born in Warsaw, Poland,[1] to an Ashkenazi Jewish family, and began playing the piano at the age of six, and soon demonstrated considerable talent on this instrument.
[citation needed] In 1935, upon being offered a seven-year contract with MGM by studio head Louis B. Mayer, Kaper and Jurmann emigrated to the United States, where they continued their work.
[1] They worked again with the Marx Brothers on their follow-up film, A Day at the Races (1937), for which Kaper, Jurmann, and Gus Kahn wrote the song "All God's Chillun Got Rhythm",[1] which became a minor jazz standard.
This community included composers, writers, and filmmakers such as Thomas and Heinrich Mann, Bertolt Brecht, Arnold Schoenberg, Lion Feuchtwanger, Max Reinhardt, Hanns Eisler, and Berthold and Salka Viertel.
[1] It has since become a jazz standard,[1] recorded by artists including Miles Davis, Sarah Vaughan, John Coltrane, Tony Bennett, and Eric Dolphy.
Kaper's interest in melding exotic indigenous music with traditional styles continued in Lord Jim, where he introduced Western audiences to the unique sound of the southeast-Asian gamelan orchestra.
The Bronisław Kaper Awards For Young Artists are held annually by the Los Angeles Philharmonic for the piano and strings instrumental categories, which alternate each year.
Named in honor of Bronisław Kaper, who served for more than 15 years as a member of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Association's Board of Directors, the Awards encourage the development of young and gifted musicians.