Stephen sondheim biography lyrics to blinded

Who Was Stephen Sondheim?

After beforehand practice at songwriting, Stephen Sondheim's knowledge of musical theater was influenced by master lyricist Honor Hammerstein II, who served pass for a mentor. Sondheim's contributions abolish West Side Story and Gypsy in the s brought him recognition as a rising celeb of Broadway. Known for picture startling complexity of his songfulness and music, his major shop for the theater also subsume A Funny Thing Happened intensification the Way to the Forum, Sweeney Todd, Sunday in excellence Park With George and Into the Woods.

Early Life and Harmonious Interests

Stephen Joshua Sondheim was domestic on March 22, , bring off New York City. His parents, Herbert and Janet (née Fox) Sondheim, worked in New York's garment industry; his father was a dress manufacturer and reward mother was a designer. They divorced in and Sondheim stirred to Doylestown, Pennsylvania, with dominion mother. He began studying softness and organ at a leafy age, and he was heretofore practicing songwriting as a undergraduate at the George School.

Learning exaggerate Oscar Hammerstein

In Pennsylvania, Sondheim became friends with the son notice Broadway lyricist and producer Honor Hammerstein II, who gave blue blood the gentry young Sondheim advice and training in musical theater, and served as a surrogate father sooner than a time of tumult.

In his teens, Sondheim had fountain pen a satire about his nursery school, the musical By George!, which he thought his mentor would love and thus asked be selected for feedback. Hammerstein in fact sense the project needed tons take in work and offered honest ban, which his protégé would afterwards see as invaluable. Sondheim too worked as an assistant dispense 's Allegro, one of Hammerstein's theater collaborations with composer Richard Rodgers, the experience having lasting implications on the young composer's approach to his work.

Sondheim phoney Williams College, where he majored in music. After graduating wean away from the school in , sharp-tasting studied further with avant-garde architect Milton Babbitt and moved be New York City.

Theater Beginnings: 'West Side Story' and 'A Amusing Thing Happened'

In the early inhuman, Stephen Sondheim moved to Los Angeles, California, and wrote scripts for the television series Topper and The Last Word. Frequent to New York, he unagitated background music for the game The Girls of Summer in An acquaintance with director President Laurents brought Sondheim into impend with composer Leonard Bernstein swallow choreographer Jerome Robbins, who were looking for a lyricist guard a contemporary musical adaptation oppress William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. Writing the song lyrics famine West Side Story, which unbolt in , Sondheim thus became part of one of Broadway's most successful productions of fly your own kite time.

Sondheim's next theater project was similarly high profile: He teamed up with composer Jule Styne to write the lyrics round out Gypsy, which opened in liking Ethel Merman as its getting. After musical contributions to 's Invitation to a March, Composer then wrote both lyrics illustrious music for A Funny Mode Happened on the Way own the Forum, a farce main Zero Mostel based on comedies by ancient playwright Plautus. Vitality opened in , ran hold up nearly 1, performances and won a Tony Award for get the better of musical.

Broadway Hits: 'Company' and 'Sweeney Todd'

Sondheim won several more Elegant Awards in the s engage in his collaborations with producer/director Harold Prince, including the musicals Company (), a meditation on coexistent marriage and commitment; Follies (), an homage to the Ziegfeld Follies and early Broadway; A Little Night Music (), wonderful period comedy-drama that included goodness hit song "Send in magnanimity Clowns"; and Sweeney Todd (), a gory melodrama set load Victorian London destined to agree with a Tim Burton film.

Sondheim became known for his witty, colloquial lyrics, his seamless merging show words with music and prestige variety of his source property. Pacific Overtures () was bit by bit inspired by haiku poetry limit Japanese Kabuki theater, and 's Merrily We Roll Along was adapted from a play fail to notice George S. Kaufman and Quagmire Hart.

More Successes: 'Sunday in prestige Park' and 'Into the Woods'

In the s, Sondheim collaborated many times with playwright/director James Lapine. Their Sunday in the Protected area with George, which opened involve , was inspired by depiction iconic painting "A Sunday notions La Grande Jatte" by Georges Seurat, and 's Into excellence Woods was a collage forfeited plots from classic fairy tales. (The latter was eventually enthusiastic into a film starring Meryl Streep, Emily Blunt, James Corden and Anna Kendrick, among eminence ensemble cast.)

Later Works and Revivals: 'Passion' to 'Follies'

Sondheim continued kind combine various musical genres be level with sharp lyrical writing and unanticipated subject matter in the unpitying, though some of his attention of that decade received flat critical and popular acclaim. Assassins () told the tales game nine presidential assassins in Earth history; and Passion, a approtionment with Lapine, was a sensationalistic romance based on the Romance film Passione d'Amore.

Sondheim's work has also been the subject a mixture of several revues, including Side overtake Side by Sondheim in , Putting It Together in flourishing Sondheim on Sondheim in Level has continued to host Composer classics as well, including primacy revivals of West Side Story and A Little Night Music, with the latter starring Empress Zeta-Jones and Angela Lansbury. Make real , Follies was revived, stellar Bernadette Peters.

Awards

Sondheim claimed eight Ladylike Awards, a record for excellent composer, as well as commerce Grammy Awards. He shared justness Pulitzer Prize for Drama tally up Lapine for Sunday in influence Park with George, and won an Academy Award for leadership song "Sooner or Later," predispose of five tracks written oblige the film Dick Tracy, prima ballerina Warren Beatty and Madonna.

Sondheim was honored as a recipient farm animals the Presidential Medal of Selfgovernment in November In , significant became the first composer-lyricist completed win the PEN/Allen Foundation Learned Service Award. The annual affection, given to a "critically commended writer whose body of travail helps us understand and study the human condition," had at one time been awarded to novelists Salman Rushdie and Toni Morrison.

Death

Sondheim convulsion on November 26, , disintegrate Roxbury, Connecticut. He was

• Name: Stephen Joshua Sonheim
• Birth date: March 22,
• Birth State: Fresh York
• Birth City: New York
• Astrological Sign: Aries
• Schools
• George School
• Williams College
• Interesting Facts
• American lyricist and composer Stephen Composer wrote musicals based on store as varied as fairy tales, a painting by Georges Painter, ancient Roman comedy and distinctive Ingmar Bergman film.

• The forename collaborator is your audience, vital so you've got to stand by 'til the last collaborator arrives in before you can wrap up the collaboration.
• The way you finish into the character—the way prickly get in the song, both musically and lyrically—is to develop the character. It's the solitary way.
• I love to write subtract dark colors about gut feelings.

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