Denes Agay

Denes Agay (June 10, 1911 – January 24, 2007) was a Hungarian-born, Hungarian-American composer, music educator, arranger and author. Agay is known for compiling the million-selling music collection Best Loved Songs of the American People (1975). Early life and career Agay was born on June 10, 1911 in Kiskunfélegyháza, Austria-Hungary (present-day, Hungary) to Hungarian-Jewish family. Agay began playing piano at the age of three. In 1934 he completed his musical studies at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest. He was simultaneously studying law at the University of Budapest, but dropped out a year before earning his degree to concentrate on music. Agay conducted the Budapest Philharmonic Orchestra in a performance of a symphony which he composed. He worked as a film composer; one film assignment was writing the background music for Hedy Lamarr’s nude scene in the 1933 film Ecstasy. Move to the US Agay was Jewish, and after the rise of Nazism, he emigrated to New York in 1939. His parents were murdered in Auschwitz. In 1942 he became an American citizen and joined the military, entertaining patients in the hospital wards in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. After the war Agay returned to