Robert
Drasnin was born in Charleston, WV Nov.17th, 1927 and has lived
in Southern California since 1938. Upon graduation from L.A.
High in 1945, he enlisted in the Army and served briefly til
the end of WW II. He majored in Music at UCLA, receiving his
B.A. in 1949, and proceeded to go on the road, playing Sax, Clarinet
and Flute with the Skinnay Ennis and Les Brown orchestras.
With the advent of the Korean War he again went into the Army and served another two years. He returned to UCLA as a graduate student in 1953, and for the next 5 years studied Music Composition with Lukas Foss. He soon became the Associate Conductor of the UCLA Symphony.
While a graduate student, he managed to continue his Jazz career, playing with the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra, and playing and recording with the Red Norvo Quintet. Robert Drasnin began his film scoring career writing scores for live television dramatic shows such as "Playhouse 90","Climax","Studio One", "Ford Startime", and "CBS Playhouse", for which he composed the score for the first television production of Arthur Miller's "Death Of A Salesman".
He has composed and conducted the music for upwards of 200 episodes of such celebrated series as "Twilight Zone", Alfred Hitchcock Presents", "Wagon Train", "Man From U.N.C.L.E.", "Mission Impossible", "The Wild Wild West", "Lost In Space", "Time Tunnel", "Police Story", Hawaii 5-0", "Streets of San Francisco", "The Rookies", "CHiPS", "Cannon", Barnaby Jones", "I Spy", "Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea" and "National Geographic Specials". He has scored more than 2 dozen Movies For Television and a handful of Feature Films, including John Huston's cold-war spy-thriller, "The Kremlin Letter", and an early Jack Nicholson western, "Ride In The Whirlwind".
As an educator, Drasnin taught Film Scoring, Orchestration and Music Theory at Cal State Northridge from 1976 to 1991. Since 1993 he has been an Instructor in the Film Scoring Program of UCLA Extension, receiving an Outstanding Instructor award in 2007. He has also taught Film Scoring, 20th Century Harmony and Conducting for Screen Training Ireland, in Dublin. From 1977 to 1991, he worked for CBS as Director Of Music.
In 2001 Bob was featured as Composer,Conductor and clarinet soloist with the Intergalactic Contemporary Ensemble at the London (England) Jazz Festival in Queen Elizabeth Hall. In the world of Pop Music, he has composed and recorded two Exotica albums, "Voodoo" and "Voodoo II", and conducted selections from them at various Tiki Festivals in Minneapolis, Fort Lauderdale, Tuscon and San Diego. He is currently working on another "Voodoo" project.
In 2008, Robert Drasnin was inducted
into the West Virginia Music Hall Of Fame.