Heinz Kiessling was a German

Germans

The Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages....

 musician

Musician

A musician is an artist who plays a musical instrument. It may or may not be the person's profession. Musicians can be classified by their roles in performing music and writing music.Also....* A person who makes music a profession....

, conductor

Conducting

Conducting is the art of directing a musical performance by way of visible gestures. The primary duties of the conductor are to unify performers, set the tempo, execute clear preparations and beats, and to listen critically and shape the sound of the ensemble...

, composer

Composer

A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...

 and music producer, known mainly from his work for popular films and television programs.

Biography

Heinz Kiessling studied piano, composition and conducting, after World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

 at the Nuremberg Conservatory and started his career in 1949 as a pianist and got to play in different concerts around the world. Soon after he started working on recording music for television. At times, he also led his own orchestra, and also worked many years for the RIAS Big Band in Berlin. Together with the pianist Werner Tautz he established in 1964 the label "Brilliant" through which he managed numerous national and international big band

Big band

A big band is a type of musical ensemble associated with jazz and the Swing Era typically consisting of rhythm, brass, and woodwind instruments totaling approximately twelve to twenty-five musicians...

s.

Kiessling worked with many national and international stars, including Chet Baker

Chet Baker

Chesney Henry "Chet" Baker, Jr. was an American jazz trumpeter, flugelhornist and singer.Though his music earned him a large following , Baker's popularity was due in part to his "matinee idol-beauty" and "well-publicized drug habit."He died in 1988 in Amsterdam, the...

, Luis Bonfa, Wenche Myhre

Wenche Myhre

Wenche Synnøve Myhre , in some countries known as Wencke Myhre, is a Norwegian singer and actress who has had a great number of hit songs since the 1960s in the Norwegian, German as well as the Swedish markets and languages.She got her first recording contract with composer and producer Arne...

, and Caterina Valente

Caterina Valente

Caterina Valente is a singer, dancer, and actress. She was born into an Italian artist family; her father Giuseppe was a well-known accordion player, her mother, Maria Valente, a musical clown...

. For over two decades, he accompanied the shows of Peter Alexander. In addition, Kiessling composed the songs and scene music for numerous films and television productions, including Klimbim, Zwei himmlische Töchter

Zwei himmlische Töchter

Zwei himmlische Töchter is a German television series....

, Dingsda, Das Traumschiff

Das Traumschiff

Das Traumschiff is a West German-German television series by ZDF.The series, about a cruise ship that travels to places around the world, debuted in 1981 and became one of the most-watched television shows in Germany...

 and Aktenzeichen XY... ungelöst

Aktenzeichen XY... ungelöst

Aktenzeichen XY … ungelöst is a German television programme broadcast since October 1967 on ZDF that aims to combat and solve crimes. Until 2003 it was produced in co-operation with the Austrian public service broadcaster ORF and Schweizer Fernsehen, a division of the Swiss public broadcaster...

. In total he produced over 1200 tunes and also published some of his own recordings which made him become one of the most successful German "Easy listening

Easy listening

Easy listening is a broad style of popular music and radio format that emerged in the 1950s, evolving out of big band music, and related to MOR music as played on many AM radio stations. It encompasses the exotica, beautiful music, light music, lounge music, ambient music, and space age pop genres...

" composers of the post-war period.

In 1969, Kiessling wrote "In The Shadow Of The Moon" for Reprise

Reprise

Reprise is a fundamental device in the history of art. In literature, a reprise consists of the rewriting of another work; in music, a reprise is the repetition or reiteration of the opening material later in a composition as occurs in the recapitulation of sonata form, though—originally in the...

, which later on became the theme song for Frank Sinatra

Frank Sinatra

Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra was an American singer and actor.Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became an unprecedentedly successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, after being signed to Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the...

's daughter Tina Sinatra

Tina Sinatra

Christina "Tina" Sinatra is the youngest child of Frank Sinatra and his first wife, Nancy Barbato Sinatra. Christina's parents divorced when she was three years old...

 TV mini-series "Romeo und Julia 70".

His music is heard in the FX

FX Networks

FX is the name of a number of related pay television channels owned by News Corporation's Fox Entertainment Group...

 TV show It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia

It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia

It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia is an American television sitcom that premiered on FX on August 4, 2005. New episodes continue to air on FX, with reruns playing on Comedy Central, general broadcast syndication, and WGN America—the first-ever cable-to-cable syndication deal for a sitcom...

.