Composer Stephen Sondheim turned 80 last month and the musical theatre world is pull out all the stops to celebrate. The Roundabout Theatre Company announced it is renaming a Broadway theater for him. Starting today, the non-profit is staging a new musical revue, "Sondheim on Sondheim," featuring many of the eight-time Tony winner's most memorable songs. We’ll get an appreciation of the composer, whose career stretches back over five decades. Our guests include actor Euan Morton, and theater critic Jesse Green.
Comments [5]
Belated best wishes Stephen Sondheim for your 80th birthday! How rare indeed it is to have so many talents as a writer, a lyricist, and a composer at the top of commercially appreciated widely performed major works of the theater! We are indeed lucky to have enjoyed your accomplishments in the real time of your writing them and to have them so well attended and so well critiqued favorably. Enjoy your well-deserved kudos!!
Kenneth Bennett Lane, Wagnerian heldentenor
Director, Richard Wagner Music Drama Institute, where actors are trained for the Shakespeare roles and big-voiced singers are coached in the Wagner opera roles.
Website:WagnerOpera.com, where one can download 37 complete selections from my 4 solo concerts in the Isaac Stern Auditorium of Carnegie Hall from the "Recorded Selections" options on the home page.
I'M CORRECTING THE OPENING SENTENCE ON MY COMMENT...IT SHOULD READ:
"You CAN'T equate....
thanks...
THE SENTENCE WAS SUPPOSED TO START AS FOLLOWS:
YOU CAN'T EQUATE....
AN ACCIDENTAL DELETION ON MY PART.
CORRECTION----- for MY previous comment - my sentence was cut off.
I meant' you can't equate the genius of Sondheim with the marketing talent and ability to know from whom to borrow that is typical of Andrew Lloyd Weber...
the
You can equate the genius of Sondheim with the marketing talent and ability to 'borrow' from the dead and famous...I can list names.
Sondheim has changed musical theatre, has a talent for both lyrics and music, is like no one and stands in a category by himself.
As for "HIT songs", I remember recording with a brilliant pianist who said "when I begin to feel successful I begin to worry."
The majority of the public know precious little about music and the 'buying power' rests with those with questionable taste.
The fact that Sondheim is getting this kind of recognition is to be celebrated rather than questioned.
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