BIOGRAPHY

George Kleinsinger was an American composer and conductor from San Bernardino, California. He studied music at the Juilliard School in New York and was a music director for Civilian Conservation Corps camps. During World War II he was music supervisor for the U. S. Army’s 2nd Service Command. His Broadway stage scores include “Shinbone Alley,” and his television scores include “Greece – The Golden Age”, and “John Brown’s Body”.

He lived for much of his life in Manhattan’s famous Chelsea Hotel, with a forest of plants, flying birds, exotic fish (including piranha), a tarantula and even a giant snake! One day a tuba player came up to him and said “Mr. Kleinsinger, nobody’s ever written a concerto for a tuba.” He was touched by the idea of this highly trained musician who only played harmony, and so he wrote “Tubby the Tuba” with his friend and lyricist Paul Tripp. “Tubby the Tuba” quickly became what is probably the most well-known children’s symphonic work after Sergei Prokofiev’s “Peter and the Wolf.”