Stephen Sondheim
Stephen Sondheim
Stephen Joshua Sondheimis an American composer and lyricist known for more than a half-century of contributions to musical theatre. Sondheim has received an Academy Award, eight Tony Awards, eight Grammy Awards, a Pulitzer Prize, the Laurence Olivier Award, and a 2015 Presidential Medal of Freedom. He has been described by Frank Rich of The New York Times as "now the greatest and perhaps best-known artist in the American musical theater." His best-known works as composer and lyricist include A Funny...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionComposer
Date of Birth22 March 1930
CountryUnited States of America
I don't find my life that interesting. The shows, maybe. But not me.
Can't we just pursue our lives With our children and our wives Till that happy day arrives How do you ignore All the witches All the curses All the wolves, all the lies The false hopes, the goodbyes . . .
My personal life and my artistic life do not interfere with each other.
I need them musically. You figure it out. Figure it out.
Sometimes people leave you halfway through the woods. Do not let it grieve you, no one leaves for good
I was essentially trained by Oscar Hammerstein to think of songs as one-act plays, to move a song from point A to point B dramatically.
If you force yourself to write away from the piano, you come up with more inventive things. If you're too good a piano player, as some composers are, the music may become flavorless and glib. And if you're not a very good pianist, you're limited to the same patterns.
Making lyrics feel natural, sit on music in such a way that you don't feel the effort of the author, so that they shine and bubble and rise and fall, is very, very hard to do. Whereas you can sit at the piano and just play and feel you're making art.
I think 'lunch' is one of the funniest words in the world.
I certainly wanted my name in lights. I wanted my name on a marquee. I wanted recognition on Broadway.
It ain't just a question of misunderstood, Deep down inside him, he's no good
Stephen Sondheim was there to coach us. It was wonderful. He'd say surprising things: I shouldn't enunciate too fully when I sang 'Not Getting Married Today' from 'Company' because it would throw the rhyme scheme off. Usually you are encouraged to enunciate as clearly as possible. But his tips would make a song more effective.
When the song is part of the action and working as dialogue, even two minutes is way too long.
My parents weren't around much, but I assumed everybody's family was the same. I didn't know people had mummies and daddies who would give them milk and cookies after school. I just thought everybody lived on Central Park West and they had a nanny to take care of them.