Henri René

Henri René was an American-born German producer, conductor and arranger. René mother’s was German and his father French; while young, his family moved to Germany, and René studied at the Royal Berlin Academy of Music. Returning to the U.S. in the mid 1920s, he began appearing with several orchestras. Soon after he returned to Berlin, working as an arranger with a German record label.

In 1936, René came back to the U.S. and became musical director for the international wing of RCA-Victor, forming his own orchestra in 1941. After service for the Allies in World War II, he resumed working at RCA as a conductor and arranger. In the middle of the 1950s, he issued several successful LPs which Allmusic has called “forerunners of the space-age pop aesthetic”; among the albums were Music for Bachelors, Music for the Weaker Sex, Compulsion to Swing and Riot in Rhythm. After this René worked in production for RCA, with Harry Belafonte and Eartha Kitt among others. In 1959 he left RCA to work freelance for the rest of his active career.