With his grandfather and parents proudly looking on from the front row, pianist Paul Henning entertained and thrilled the audience filling the Bishop Place Independent Living Social Room on Dec. 22, 2009, during “An Evening of Music.”The grandson of Greg Neill, Bishop Place resident, his parents are Carolee and William Armfield of Pullman
Henning grew up in Pullman and is an alum of Washington State University and Pullman High School. He also studied at USC.
He lives in Los Angeles scoring orchestrations for films, working on orchestral arrangements, playing the piano and violin and more.
For his biographical information, visit here.
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Story from Dec. 26, 2015, below about Paul Henning. Although it says he was born in Pullman, that's not the case. He was born in Spokane. Grew up in Pullman. Link to his bio info here:
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0377418/bio
Pullman-born musician helped score new Star Wars
Staff of three kept digital record updated as John Williams created, revised
By Associated Press, Dec 26, 2015
PULLMAN — A Pullman native and
Washington State University grad helped create the new Star Wars score with
Academy Award-winning composer-conductor John Williams.
Paul Henning tells The
Moscow-Pullman Daily News that working with Williams to create the musical
score for “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” was a long but gratifying experience.
It was hard to keep up with
Williams, 83, who still works daily, said Henning.
Henning, who now lives in Los
Angeles, was one of three people entering each handwritten note and musician’s
performance direction into a laptop computer using electronic keyboards.
Williams is considered by most the
best modern composer of film scores. Along with the Star Wars films, he also
created the music for “Jaws,” “Superman,” “E.T.: The Extraterrestrial” and all
of the Indiana Jones films.
Hearing those scores had a major
influence on Henning.
“He’s a genius,” said Henning, 39.
Williams is “a perfectionist and very exacting. He revises extensively.”
Williams’ initial pencil sketches of
each composition undergo revisions using red ink, then in green ink. Later
revisions have pieces of paper containing new material taped on older sketches.
“It’s comforting to see someone,
even at his level, know that he could do better,” Henning said.
The seventh episode of Star Wars
required about a year of musical work. Williams wrote more than 150 pieces of
music for the movie, about half of which were used, Henning said.
After the score was worked and
reworked, heavy re-editing of the film required the music to be revised to fit
visual sequences.
Director J.J. Abrams is also known as a perfectionist, Henning said.
Final work on the music was
completed by Thanksgiving.Director J.J. Abrams is also known as a perfectionist, Henning said.
“I couldn’t tell people what I was
doing in connection to the film until it was done,” he said. “Everything
related to it was shrouded in secrecy.”
Henning was able to watch the pieces
performed by an orchestra in Los Angeles. Williams also did much of the
conducting.
He’ll be working again with Williams
on scoring the upcoming film “The BFG,” which stands for Big Friendly Giant.
Henning started playing the piano at
age 9 and took up the violin during his teens. He is also a composer-arranger,
violinist and concertmaster for the Golden State Pops Orchestra. He continued
performing as a violinist during the time he was working on Star Wars.
He returned to Pullman to visit
relatives during the holidays. His first solo album, “Breaking Through,” is
expected to be released next year.
