Maury Yeston
Encyclopedia
Maury Yeston is an American
composer, lyricist, educator and musicologist.
He is known for writing the music and lyrics to Broadway
musicals
, including Nine
in 1982, and Titanic
in 1997, both of which won Tony Awards for best musical and best score. He also won a Drama Desk Award
for Nine. Yeston also wrote a significant amount of the music and most of the lyrics to the Tony-nominated musical Grand Hotel
in 1989, which was nominated for best score. His musical version of the novel The Phantom of the Opera
called Phantom
(not to be confused with Andrew Lloyd Webber
's version
) has enjoyed numerous productions in the U.S. and around the world. He has also written a number of other Off-Broadway
musicals, a song cycle
, a Cello Concerto, and other pieces.
Yeston serves on the Board of the Songwriters Hall of Fame
. He is also President of the Kleban Foundation, serves on the editorial boards of Musical Quarterly and the Kurt Weill Foundation Publication Project and on the advisory board of the Yale University Press Broadway Series. He was the Director of the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theater Workshop
in New York City
for two decades beginning in 1982.
. His English-born father, David, founded the Dial Import Corporation, an importing and exporting firm, and his mother, Frances (née Haar), helped run the business. But the family loved music. His father sang English music hall
songs, and his mother was an accomplished pianist. Yeston noted in a 1997 interview, "My mother was trained in classical piano, and her father was a cantor in a synagogue
. A lot of musical theatre writers have something in common. Irving Berlin
, George Gershwin
, Kurt Weill
– each one had a cantor in the family. When you take a young, impressionable child and put him at age three in the middle of a synagogue, and that child sees a man in a costume, dramatically raised up on a kind of stage, singing his heart out at the top of his lungs to a rapt congregation, it makes a lasting impression." At age five, Yeston began taking piano lessons from his mother, and by age seven he had won an award for composition. He attended the Yeshiva
of Hudson County through grade eight. Yeston's interest in musical theatre
began at age ten when his mother took him to see My Fair Lady
on Broadway
. At Jersey Academy, a small private high school in Jersey City, Yeston broadened his musical study beyond classical and religious music and Broadway show tunes to include jazz, folk, rock and roll, and early music
. He took up folk guitar, played vibraphone
with a jazz group, and participated in madrigal
singing.
As an undergraduate at Yale University
, Yeston majored in music theory
and composition and minored in literature, particularly French, German, and Japanese. Yeston noted, "I am as much a lyricist as a composer, and the musical theatre is the only genre I know in which the lyrics are as important as the music." After graduating from Yale in 1967, Yeston attended Clare College at Cambridge University in England. There he belonged to the Footlights dramatics organization and wrote several classical pieces and a musical version of Alice in Wonderland. Alice was eventually produced at the Long Wharf Theatre
in Connecticut
in 1971. At Cambridge, he focused his musical goals, moving from classical composition to theatre songwriting. Upon earning his master's degree at Cambridge in 1972, Yeston returned to the United States to accept a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship, which included a teaching position at Lincoln University
in Pennsylvania
, the country's oldest traditionally black college. At Lincoln, Yeston taught music, art, philosophy, religion, and western civilization, and started a course in the history of black music.
Yeston pursued his musicology doctorate at Yale and enrolled in the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theater Workshop
, travelling to New York City
each week, where he and other aspiring composer/lyricists were able to try out material for established Broadway producers and directors. He completed his Ph.D. at Yale in 1974, publishing his dissertation as a book by the Yale University Press
, The Stratification of Musical Rhythm (1976). He also wrote a Cello Concerto that was premiered by Yo-Yo Ma
and the Norwalk Symphony, Gilbert Levine
conductor, 1976. He then joined the Yale music faculty, where he taught for eight years, serving as the Director of Undergraduate Studies in Music. He published another book with Yale University Press, Readings in Schenker Analysis and Other Approaches (editor, 1977). He was twice elected by the student body as one of Yale's ten best professors.
While teaching at Yale, Yeston continued to attend the BMI workshop principally to work on his project, begun in 1973, to write a musical inspired by Federico Fellini
's 1963 film 8½
. As a teenager, Yeston had seen the film, about a film director suffering a midlife crisis and a creativity drought, and he was intrigued by its themes. "I looked at the screen and said 'That's me.' I still believed in all the dreams and ideals of what it was to be an artist, and here was a movie about... an artist in trouble. It became an obsession," Yeston told The New York Times
in 1982. Yeston called the musical Nine
(the age of the director in his flashback), explaining that if you add music to 8½, "it's like half a number more."
In 1978, at the O'Neill conference, Yeston and director Tommy Tune
held a staged reading of Nine. Unbeknownst to him, Katharine Hepburn
was in the audience, and after seeing it and liked it, she wrote to Fellini saying she had seen a wonderful show based on his movie. When Yeston went to ask permission to make the show a musical, Fellini told him he already received a letter from Hepburn and gave him permission. Playwright Mario Fratti had written the book, but the producers and Tune eventually decided his script did not work, and brought in Arthur Kopit in 1981 to write an entirely new book. The show originally had male and female parts, but Yeston was not satisfied with the men auditioning, except Raul Julia
. They had liked a lot of the women who had auditioned, so Tune suggested casting them all. Yeston began work on choral arrangements for 24 women. And since he had so many women, Yeston thought, instead of having the band play the overture, have all the women sing it. Once Liliane Montevecchi
joined the cast, Yeston was so impressed with her voice he wrote Folies Bergere just for her. He also expanded Call From The Vatican for Anita Morris
once he discovered she could sing a high C.
In 1981, while collaborating on Nine, Tune asked Yeston to write incidental music
for an American production of Caryl Churchill
's play Cloud Nine
. Tune was also engaged to work on La Cage aux Folles that was based on the 1978 film of the same name, and the producer, Allen Carr
, was seeking a composer. Yeston was engaged to write the music, with a book by Jay Presson Allen
. Their stage version of the film was to be called The Queen of Basin Street and set in New Orleans. Mike Nichols
was set to direct, Tommy Tune
to choreograph. Yeston took time off from Yale to work on the project and had already written several songs, but Carr was unable to put together the financing for the show, and the project was postponed. Carr searched for executive producers and found them in Fritz Holt
and Barry Brown, who immediately fired the entire creative team that Carr had assembled. All of them eventually filed lawsuits, but only Yeston won, and he later collected a small royalty from La Cage.
Meanwhile, Yeston and Tune turned back to Nine, which opened on Broadway
on May 9, 1982 at the 46th Street Theatre
and ran for 729 performances. The cast included Raul Julia
as Guido. The musical won five Tony Awards, including best musical, and Yeston won for best score. A London production and successful revivals followed. In 2009, a film version
of the musical, directed by Rob Marshall
and starring Daniel Day-Lewis
and Marion Cotillard
, was released. Yeston wrote three new songs for the film and was nominated for the 2009 Academy Award for Best Original Song
for "Take It All".
Phantom and next projects
After the success of Nine, Yeston left his position as associate professor at Yale, although he continued to teach a course there every other semester on songwriting. He turned to writing a musical version of Gaston Leroux
's novel, The Phantom of the Opera
. He was approached with the idea by actor/director Geoffrey Holder
, who held the American rights to the novel. Initially, Yeston was skeptical of the project. "I laughed and laughed.... That's the worst idea in the world! Why would you want to write a musical based on a horror story?.... And then it occurred to me that the story could be somewhat changed.... [The Phantom] would be a Quasimodo character, an Elephant Man. Don't all of us feel, despite outward imperfections, that deep inside we're good? And that is a character you cry for."
Yeston had completed much of Phantom
and was in the process of raising money for a Broadway production when Andrew Lloyd Webber
announced plans for his own musical version of the story
. After Lloyd Webber's show became a smash hit in London in 1986, Yeston's version could not get funding for a Broadway production. However, in 1991, it premiered in a full-scale, top quality production at Houston's Theatre Under the Stars
and has since received over 1,000 productions around the world. The Houston production was recorded as an original cast album by RCA records
. Yeston's Phantom is more operetta-like in style than Lloyd Webber's, seeking to reflect the 1890s period, and seeks to project a French atmosphere to reflect its Parisian setting.
Yeston also wrote In the Beginning (originally called 1-2-3-4-5), a musical based on the first five books of the Bible, presented at the Manhattan Theatre Club
in 1987 and 1988. In 1988 Yeston recorded a studio recording of a musical called Goya: A Life in Song
. Plácido Domingo
sang the role of Spanish painter Francisco de Goya, with Jennifer Rush
, Gloria Estefan
, Dionne Warwick
, Richie Havens
, and Seiko Matsuda
. Domingo was interested in starring in a stage musical about Goya and suggested to producer Alan Carr that Yeston would be the right person to create the vehicle, since Domingo had admired Yeston's work on Nine. Because of Domingo's time commitments, the musical was made into a concept album
instead. Herman Levin loved the song "New Words" and wanted it to be the show's title. He introduced Yeston to Alan Jay Lerner
to show him the song, and "Lerner thought the song was so wonderful he invited me to stop by his office every couple of weeks so he could give me pointers. He said Oscar Hammerstein
had done that for him and he wanted to do that for me. So, I really got coaching lessons - mentoring - in a series of meetings with Alan Jay Lerner as a result of having written that song."
Grand Hotel
Also in 1989, Tommy Tune
, who had directed Nine, asked Yeston to improve the score of Grand Hotel, a musical that was doing badly in tryouts. The show was based on the 1932 movie of the same name and on an unsuccessful 1958 musical called At the Grand, with a score by Robert Wright (writer)Robert Wright and George Forrest
. Yeston wrote six new songs for Grand Hotel and rewrote approximately half the lyrics in the show. After Grand Hotel opened on Broadway in November 1989, Yeston, along with Wright and Forrest, was nominated for the Tony Award for best score. The show ran for 1,077 performances.
After this, Yeston wrote December Songs
(1991), a song cycle
adapted from Franz Schubert
's Winterreise
. December Songs was written as a commissioned piece for the 1991 centennial celebration of New York's Carnegie Hall
, where it was performed by cabaret singer Andrea Marcovicci
. The work crosses over the line from classical music to Broadway to cabaret.
Titanic
The discovery of the wreckage of the R.M.S. Titanic in 1985 attracted Yeston's interest in writing a musical about the famous disaster. "What drew me to the project was the positive aspects of what the ship represented – 1) humankind's striving after great artistic works and similar technological feats, despite the possibility of tragic failure, and 2) the dreams of the passengers on board: 3rd Class, to immigrate to America for a better life; 2nd Class, to live a leisured lifestyle in imitation of the upper classes; 1st Class, to maintain their privileged positions forever. The collision with the iceberg dashed all of these dreams simultaneously, and the subsequent transformation of character of the passengers and crew had, it seemed to me, the potential for great emotional and musical expression onstage." Librettist Peter Stone
and Yeston knew that the idea was an unusual subject for a musical. "I think if you don't have that kind of daring damn-the-torpedoes, you shouldn't be in this business. It's the safe sounding shows that often don't do well. You have to dare greatly, and I really want to stretch the bounds of the kind of expression in musical theater," Yeston explained. Yeston saw the story as unique to turn-of-the-century British culture, with its rigid social class system and its romanticization of progress through technology. "In order to depict that on the stage, because this is really a very English show, I knew I would have to have a color similar to the one found in the music of the great composers at that time, like Elgar
or Vaughan Williams; this was for me an opportunity to bring in the musical theater an element of the symphonic tradition that I think we really haven't had before. That was very exciting."
The high cost of Titanic's set made it impossible for the show to have traditional out of town tryouts. Titanic opened at Broadway's Lunt-Fontanne Theatre
in 1997 to mostly negative reviews. The New Yorker
's was a rare positive assessment from the New York press: "It seemed a foregone conclusion that the show would be a failure; a musical about history's most tragic maiden voyage, in which fifteen hundred people lost their lives, was obviously preposterous.... Astonishingly, Titanic manages to be grave and entertaining, somber and joyful; little by little you realize that you are in the presence of a genuine addition to American musical theatre." The show was championed by Rosie O'Donnell
, who talked about the show daily on her television show, inviting the cast to perform musical numbers and giving theatre tickets to the members of her studio audiences. This publicity, along with the show's strong showing at the Tony Awards, enabled it to outlast its competition. It ran for 804 performances and 26 previews.
Recent projects
Yeston wrote the music and lyrics to Death Takes a Holiday
, a musical version of the film of the same name
, with a book by Peter Stone
and Thomas Meehan
. It premiered on July 14, 2011 (after previews from June 10) Off-Broadway at the Laura Pels Theatre. He is also working on another musical adaptation of Frank Loesser
's Hans Christian Andersen.
Assessment
According to Show Music magazine, Yeston "has written some of the most formally structured music in recent musical theatre. But he also has the gift for creating ravishing melody – once you've heard 'Love Can't Happen' from Grand Hotel, or 'An Unusual Way' from Nine, or 'Home' from Phantom, or any number of other Yeston songs, you'll be hooked."
Off-Broadway
Film
Other works
Yeston was also honored as Kayden Visiting Artist Designee 1998 (Harvard University
) and received the Artist of the Year Award 1998, Elaine Kaufman Foundation.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
composer, lyricist, educator and musicologist.
He is known for writing the music and lyrics to Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
musicals
Musical theatre
Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...
, including Nine
Nine (musical)
Nine is a musical with a book by Arthur Kopit, music and lyrics by Maury Yeston. The story is based on Federico Fellini's semi-autobiographical film 8½...
in 1982, and Titanic
Titanic (musical)
Titanic is a musical with music and lyrics by Maury Yeston and a book by Peter Stone that opened on Broadway in 1997. It won five Tony Awards including the award for Best Musical...
in 1997, both of which won Tony Awards for best musical and best score. He also won a Drama Desk Award
Drama Desk Award
The Drama Desk Awards, which are given annually in a number of categories, are the only major New York theater honors for which productions on Broadway, Off-Broadway, Off-Off-Broadway compete against each other in the same category...
for Nine. Yeston also wrote a significant amount of the music and most of the lyrics to the Tony-nominated musical Grand Hotel
Grand Hotel (musical)
Grand Hotel is a musical with a book by Luther Davis and music and lyrics by Robert Wright and George Forrest, with additional lyrics and music by Maury Yeston....
in 1989, which was nominated for best score. His musical version of the novel The Phantom of the Opera
The Phantom of the Opera
Le Fantôme de l'Opéra is a novel by French writer Gaston Leroux. It was first published as a serialisation in "Le Gaulois" from September 23, 1909 to January 8, 1910...
called Phantom
Phantom (musical)
Phantom is a musical with music and lyrics by Maury Yeston and a book by Arthur Kopit. Based on Gaston Leroux's 1910 novel The Phantom of the Opera, the musical was first presented in Houston, Texas in 1991....
(not to be confused with Andrew Lloyd Webber
Andrew Lloyd Webber
Andrew Lloyd Webber, Baron Lloyd-Webber is an English composer of musical theatre.Lloyd Webber has achieved great popular success in musical theatre. Several of his musicals have run for more than a decade both in the West End and on Broadway. He has composed 13 musicals, a song cycle, a set of...
's version
The Phantom of the Opera (1986 musical)
The Phantom of the Opera is a musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber, based on the French novel Le Fantôme de l'Opéra by Gaston Leroux.The music was composed by Lloyd Webber, and most lyrics were written by Charles Hart, with additional lyrics by Richard Stilgoe. Alan Jay Lerner was an early collaborator,...
) has enjoyed numerous productions in the U.S. and around the world. He has also written a number of other Off-Broadway
Off-Broadway
Off-Broadway theater is a term for a professional venue in New York City with a seating capacity between 100 and 499, and for a specific production of a play, musical or revue that appears in such a venue, and which adheres to related trade union and other contracts...
musicals, a song cycle
Song cycle
A song cycle is a group of songs designed to be performed in a sequence as a single entity. As a rule, all of the songs are by the same composer and often use words from the same poet or lyricist. Unification can be achieved by a narrative or a persona common to the songs, or even, as in Schumann's...
, a Cello Concerto, and other pieces.
Yeston serves on the Board of the Songwriters Hall of Fame
Songwriters Hall of Fame
The Songwriters Hall of Fame is an arm of the National Academy of Popular Music. It was founded in 1969 by songwriter Johnny Mercer and music publishers Abe Olman and Howie Richmond. The goal is to create a museum but as of April, 2008, the means do not yet exist and so instead it is an online...
. He is also President of the Kleban Foundation, serves on the editorial boards of Musical Quarterly and the Kurt Weill Foundation Publication Project and on the advisory board of the Yale University Press Broadway Series. He was the Director of the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theater Workshop
BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theater Workshop
The BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop is a workshop in New York for musical theatre composers, lyricists and librettists.-History:The BMI Workshop was founded in 1961 by Lehman Engel and the performing rights organization BMI ....
in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
for two decades beginning in 1982.
Early years
Yeston was born in Jersey City, New JerseyJersey City, New Jersey
Jersey City is the seat of Hudson County, New Jersey, United States.Part of the New York metropolitan area, Jersey City lies between the Hudson River and Upper New York Bay across from Lower Manhattan and the Hackensack River and Newark Bay...
. His English-born father, David, founded the Dial Import Corporation, an importing and exporting firm, and his mother, Frances (née Haar), helped run the business. But the family loved music. His father sang English music hall
Music hall
Music Hall is a type of British theatrical entertainment which was popular between 1850 and 1960. The term can refer to:# A particular form of variety entertainment involving a mixture of popular song, comedy and speciality acts...
songs, and his mother was an accomplished pianist. Yeston noted in a 1997 interview, "My mother was trained in classical piano, and her father was a cantor in a synagogue
Synagogue
A synagogue is a Jewish house of prayer. This use of the Greek term synagogue originates in the Septuagint where it sometimes translates the Hebrew word for assembly, kahal...
. A lot of musical theatre writers have something in common. Irving Berlin
Irving Berlin
Irving Berlin was an American composer and lyricist of Jewish heritage, widely considered one of the greatest songwriters in American history.His first hit song, "Alexander's Ragtime Band", became world famous...
, George Gershwin
George Gershwin
George Gershwin was an American composer and pianist. Gershwin's compositions spanned both popular and classical genres, and his most popular melodies are widely known...
, Kurt Weill
Kurt Weill
Kurt Julian Weill was a German-Jewish composer, active from the 1920s, and in his later years in the United States. He was a leading composer for the stage who was best known for his fruitful collaborations with Bertolt Brecht...
– each one had a cantor in the family. When you take a young, impressionable child and put him at age three in the middle of a synagogue, and that child sees a man in a costume, dramatically raised up on a kind of stage, singing his heart out at the top of his lungs to a rapt congregation, it makes a lasting impression." At age five, Yeston began taking piano lessons from his mother, and by age seven he had won an award for composition. He attended the Yeshiva
Yeshiva
Yeshiva is a Jewish educational institution that focuses on the study of traditional religious texts, primarily the Talmud and Torah study. Study is usually done through daily shiurim and in study pairs called chavrutas...
of Hudson County through grade eight. Yeston's interest in musical theatre
Musical theatre
Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...
began at age ten when his mother took him to see My Fair Lady
My Fair Lady
My Fair Lady is a musical based upon George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion and with book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe...
on Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
. At Jersey Academy, a small private high school in Jersey City, Yeston broadened his musical study beyond classical and religious music and Broadway show tunes to include jazz, folk, rock and roll, and early music
Early music
Early music is generally understood as comprising all music from the earliest times up to the Renaissance. However, today this term has come to include "any music for which a historically appropriate style of performance must be reconstructed on the basis of surviving scores, treatises,...
. He took up folk guitar, played vibraphone
Vibraphone
The vibraphone, sometimes called the vibraharp or simply the vibes, is a musical instrument in the struck idiophone subfamily of the percussion family....
with a jazz group, and participated in madrigal
Madrigal (music)
A madrigal is a secular vocal music composition, usually a partsong, of the Renaissance and early Baroque eras. Traditionally, polyphonic madrigals are unaccompanied; the number of voices varies from two to eight, and most frequently from three to six....
singing.
As an undergraduate at Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
, Yeston majored in music theory
Music theory
Music theory is the study of how music works. It examines the language and notation of music. It seeks to identify patterns and structures in composers' techniques across or within genres, styles, or historical periods...
and composition and minored in literature, particularly French, German, and Japanese. Yeston noted, "I am as much a lyricist as a composer, and the musical theatre is the only genre I know in which the lyrics are as important as the music." After graduating from Yale in 1967, Yeston attended Clare College at Cambridge University in England. There he belonged to the Footlights dramatics organization and wrote several classical pieces and a musical version of Alice in Wonderland. Alice was eventually produced at the Long Wharf Theatre
Long Wharf Theatre
Long Wharf Theatre is a nonprofit institution in New Haven, Connecticut, a pioneer in the not-for-profit regional theatre movement, the originator of several prominent plays, and a venue where many internationally known actors have appeared....
in Connecticut
Connecticut
Connecticut is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, and the state of New York to the west and the south .Connecticut is named for the Connecticut River, the major U.S. river that approximately...
in 1971. At Cambridge, he focused his musical goals, moving from classical composition to theatre songwriting. Upon earning his master's degree at Cambridge in 1972, Yeston returned to the United States to accept a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship, which included a teaching position at Lincoln University
Lincoln University (Pennsylvania)
Lincoln University is the United States' first degree-granting historically black university. It is located near the town of Oxford in southern Chester County, Pennsylvania. The university also hosts a Center for Graduate Studies in the City of Philadelphia. Lincoln University provides...
in Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
, the country's oldest traditionally black college. At Lincoln, Yeston taught music, art, philosophy, religion, and western civilization, and started a course in the history of black music.
Yeston pursued his musicology doctorate at Yale and enrolled in the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theater Workshop
BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theater Workshop
The BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop is a workshop in New York for musical theatre composers, lyricists and librettists.-History:The BMI Workshop was founded in 1961 by Lehman Engel and the performing rights organization BMI ....
, travelling to New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
each week, where he and other aspiring composer/lyricists were able to try out material for established Broadway producers and directors. He completed his Ph.D. at Yale in 1974, publishing his dissertation as a book by the Yale University Press
Yale University Press
Yale University Press is a book publisher founded in 1908 by George Parmly Day. It became an official department of Yale University in 1961, but remains financially and operationally autonomous....
, The Stratification of Musical Rhythm (1976). He also wrote a Cello Concerto that was premiered by Yo-Yo Ma
Yo-Yo Ma
Yo-Yo Ma is an American cellist, virtuoso, and orchestral composer. He has received multiple Grammy Awards, the National Medal of Arts in 2001 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2011...
and the Norwalk Symphony, Gilbert Levine
Gilbert Levine
Sir Gilbert Levine, KC*SG is an American conductor. He is considered an "outstanding personality in the world of international music television."-Education:...
conductor, 1976. He then joined the Yale music faculty, where he taught for eight years, serving as the Director of Undergraduate Studies in Music. He published another book with Yale University Press, Readings in Schenker Analysis and Other Approaches (editor, 1977). He was twice elected by the student body as one of Yale's ten best professors.
Musical theatre career
Nine and La CageWhile teaching at Yale, Yeston continued to attend the BMI workshop principally to work on his project, begun in 1973, to write a musical inspired by Federico Fellini
Federico Fellini
Federico Fellini, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI , was an Italian film director and scriptwriter. Known for a distinct style that blends fantasy and baroque images, he is considered one of the most influential and widely revered filmmakers of the 20th century...
's 1963 film 8½
8½
8½ is a 1963 Italian fantasy film directed by Federico Fellini. Co-scripted by Fellini, Tullio Pinelli, Ennio Flaiano, and Brunello Rondi, it stars Marcello Mastroianni as Guido Anselmi, a famous Italian film director...
. As a teenager, Yeston had seen the film, about a film director suffering a midlife crisis and a creativity drought, and he was intrigued by its themes. "I looked at the screen and said 'That's me.' I still believed in all the dreams and ideals of what it was to be an artist, and here was a movie about... an artist in trouble. It became an obsession," Yeston told The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
in 1982. Yeston called the musical Nine
Nine (musical)
Nine is a musical with a book by Arthur Kopit, music and lyrics by Maury Yeston. The story is based on Federico Fellini's semi-autobiographical film 8½...
(the age of the director in his flashback), explaining that if you add music to 8½, "it's like half a number more."
In 1978, at the O'Neill conference, Yeston and director Tommy Tune
Tommy Tune
Thomas James "Tommy" Tune is an American actor, dancer, singer, theatre director, producer, and choreographer. Over the course of his career, he has won nine Tony Awards and the National Medal of Arts.-Early years:...
held a staged reading of Nine. Unbeknownst to him, Katharine Hepburn
Katharine Hepburn
Katharine Houghton Hepburn was an American actress of film, stage, and television. In a career that spanned 62 years as a leading lady, she was best known for playing strong-willed, sophisticated women in both dramas and comedies...
was in the audience, and after seeing it and liked it, she wrote to Fellini saying she had seen a wonderful show based on his movie. When Yeston went to ask permission to make the show a musical, Fellini told him he already received a letter from Hepburn and gave him permission. Playwright Mario Fratti had written the book, but the producers and Tune eventually decided his script did not work, and brought in Arthur Kopit in 1981 to write an entirely new book. The show originally had male and female parts, but Yeston was not satisfied with the men auditioning, except Raul Julia
Raúl Juliá
Raúl Rafael Juliá y Arcelay was a Puerto Rican actor.Born in San Juan, he gained interest in acting while still in school. Upon completing his studies, Juliá decided to pursue a career in acting. After performing in the local scene for some time, he was convinced by entertainment personality Orson...
. They had liked a lot of the women who had auditioned, so Tune suggested casting them all. Yeston began work on choral arrangements for 24 women. And since he had so many women, Yeston thought, instead of having the band play the overture, have all the women sing it. Once Liliane Montevecchi
Liliane Montevecchi
Liliane Montevecchi is a French actress, dancer, and singer.Montevecchi began her career as a prima ballerina in Roland Petit's dance company...
joined the cast, Yeston was so impressed with her voice he wrote Folies Bergere just for her. He also expanded Call From The Vatican for Anita Morris
Anita Morris
-Career:Among many roles, Morris's most prominent film role was as Carol Dodsworth, the mistress to Danny DeVito, in Ruthless People and for her sensual performance as Carla in the musical Nine opposite Raul Julia. While nominated for a Best Featured Actress Tony Award as Carla, she lost to Liliane...
once he discovered she could sing a high C.
In 1981, while collaborating on Nine, Tune asked Yeston to write incidental music
Incidental music
Incidental music is music in a play, television program, radio program, video game, film or some other form not primarily musical. The term is less frequently applied to film music, with such music being referred to instead as the "film score" or "soundtrack"....
for an American production of Caryl Churchill
Caryl Churchill
Caryl Churchill is an English dramatist known for her use of non-naturalistic techniques and feminist themes, the abuses of power, and sexual politics. She is acknowledged as a major playwright in the English language and a leading female writer...
's play Cloud Nine
Cloud Nine (play)
Cloud Nine is a two-act play written by British playwright Caryl Churchill after workshops with the Joint Stock Theatre Company in late 1978 and first performed at Dartington College of Arts, Devon, on 14 February 1979....
. Tune was also engaged to work on La Cage aux Folles that was based on the 1978 film of the same name, and the producer, Allen Carr
Allen Carr
Allen Carr was an author of books about quitting smoking and other psychological dependencies including alcohol addiction. He quit smoking after 33 years as a hundred-a-day chain smoker.-Biography:...
, was seeking a composer. Yeston was engaged to write the music, with a book by Jay Presson Allen
Jay Presson Allen
Jay Presson Allen was an American screenwriter, playwright, stage director, television producer and novelist. Known for her withering wit and sometimes-off-color wisecracks, she was one of the few women making a living as a screenwriter at a time when women were a rarity in the profession...
. Their stage version of the film was to be called The Queen of Basin Street and set in New Orleans. Mike Nichols
Mike Nichols
Mike Nichols is a German-born American television, stage and film director, writer, producer and comedian. He began his career in the 1950s as one half of the comedy duo Nichols and May, along with Elaine May. In 1968 he won the Academy Award for Best Director for the film The Graduate...
was set to direct, Tommy Tune
Tommy Tune
Thomas James "Tommy" Tune is an American actor, dancer, singer, theatre director, producer, and choreographer. Over the course of his career, he has won nine Tony Awards and the National Medal of Arts.-Early years:...
to choreograph. Yeston took time off from Yale to work on the project and had already written several songs, but Carr was unable to put together the financing for the show, and the project was postponed. Carr searched for executive producers and found them in Fritz Holt
Fritz Holt
Fritz Holt was an award-winning American theatre producer and director.Born George William Holt III in San Francisco, Holt was a graduate of the University of Oregon...
and Barry Brown, who immediately fired the entire creative team that Carr had assembled. All of them eventually filed lawsuits, but only Yeston won, and he later collected a small royalty from La Cage.
Meanwhile, Yeston and Tune turned back to Nine, which opened on Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
on May 9, 1982 at the 46th Street Theatre
Richard Rodgers Theatre
The Richard Rodgers Theatre, is a Broadway theater in New York City, built by Irwin Chanin in 1925. When it was first opened, it was called Chanin's 46th Street Theatre. Chanin almost immediately leased it to the Shuberts, who bought the building outright in 1931 and renamed it the 46th Street...
and ran for 729 performances. The cast included Raul Julia
Raúl Juliá
Raúl Rafael Juliá y Arcelay was a Puerto Rican actor.Born in San Juan, he gained interest in acting while still in school. Upon completing his studies, Juliá decided to pursue a career in acting. After performing in the local scene for some time, he was convinced by entertainment personality Orson...
as Guido. The musical won five Tony Awards, including best musical, and Yeston won for best score. A London production and successful revivals followed. In 2009, a film version
Nine (film)
Nine is a 2009 musical-romantic film directed and produced by Rob Marshall. The screenplay, written by Michael Tolkin and Anthony Minghella, is based on Arthur Kopit's book for the 1982 musical of the same name, which was itself suggested by Federico Fellini's semi-autobiographical film 8½...
of the musical, directed by Rob Marshall
Rob Marshall
Rob Marshall is an American theater director, film director and choreographer. He is a six-time Tony Award nominee, Academy Award nominee, Golden Globe nominee and four-time Emmy winner whose most noted work is the 2002 Academy Award for Best Picture winner Chicago.-Life and career:Marshall was...
and starring Daniel Day-Lewis
Daniel Day-Lewis
Daniel Michael Blake Day-Lewis is an English actor with both British and Irish citizenship. His portrayals of Christy Brown in My Left Foot and Daniel Plainview in There Will Be Blood won Academy and BAFTA Awards for Best Actor, and Screen Actors Guild as well as Golden Globe Awards for the latter...
and Marion Cotillard
Marion Cotillard
Marion Cotillard is a French actress and singer. She garnered critical acclaim for her roles in films such as La Vie en Rose, My Sex Life... or How I Got Into an Argument, Taxi, Furia and Jeux d'enfants...
, was released. Yeston wrote three new songs for the film and was nominated for the 2009 Academy Award for Best Original Song
Academy Award for Best Original Song
The Academy Award for Best Original Song is one of the awards given annually to people working in the motion picture industry by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences . It is presented to the songwriters who have composed the best original song written specifically for a film...
for "Take It All".
Phantom and next projects
After the success of Nine, Yeston left his position as associate professor at Yale, although he continued to teach a course there every other semester on songwriting. He turned to writing a musical version of Gaston Leroux
Gaston Leroux
Gaston Louis Alfred Leroux was a French journalist and author of detective fiction.In the English-speaking world, he is best known for writing the novel The Phantom of the Opera , which has been made into several film and stage productions of the same name, notably the 1925 film starring Lon...
's novel, The Phantom of the Opera
The Phantom of the Opera
Le Fantôme de l'Opéra is a novel by French writer Gaston Leroux. It was first published as a serialisation in "Le Gaulois" from September 23, 1909 to January 8, 1910...
. He was approached with the idea by actor/director Geoffrey Holder
Geoffrey Holder
Geoffrey Richard Holder is a Trinidadian actor, choreographer, director, dancer, painter, costume designer, singer and voice-over artist.-Early life:...
, who held the American rights to the novel. Initially, Yeston was skeptical of the project. "I laughed and laughed.... That's the worst idea in the world! Why would you want to write a musical based on a horror story?.... And then it occurred to me that the story could be somewhat changed.... [The Phantom] would be a Quasimodo character, an Elephant Man. Don't all of us feel, despite outward imperfections, that deep inside we're good? And that is a character you cry for."
Yeston had completed much of Phantom
Phantom (musical)
Phantom is a musical with music and lyrics by Maury Yeston and a book by Arthur Kopit. Based on Gaston Leroux's 1910 novel The Phantom of the Opera, the musical was first presented in Houston, Texas in 1991....
and was in the process of raising money for a Broadway production when Andrew Lloyd Webber
Andrew Lloyd Webber
Andrew Lloyd Webber, Baron Lloyd-Webber is an English composer of musical theatre.Lloyd Webber has achieved great popular success in musical theatre. Several of his musicals have run for more than a decade both in the West End and on Broadway. He has composed 13 musicals, a song cycle, a set of...
announced plans for his own musical version of the story
The Phantom of the Opera (1986 musical)
The Phantom of the Opera is a musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber, based on the French novel Le Fantôme de l'Opéra by Gaston Leroux.The music was composed by Lloyd Webber, and most lyrics were written by Charles Hart, with additional lyrics by Richard Stilgoe. Alan Jay Lerner was an early collaborator,...
. After Lloyd Webber's show became a smash hit in London in 1986, Yeston's version could not get funding for a Broadway production. However, in 1991, it premiered in a full-scale, top quality production at Houston's Theatre Under the Stars
Theatre Under the Stars
Theatre Under The Stars or TUTS may refer to:*Theatre Under The Stars - musical theatre company in Vancouver, British Columbia*Theatre Under The Stars - musical theatre company in Houston, Texas...
and has since received over 1,000 productions around the world. The Houston production was recorded as an original cast album by RCA records
RCA Records
RCA Records is one of the flagship labels of Sony Music Entertainment. The RCA initials stand for Radio Corporation of America , which was the parent corporation from 1929 to 1985 and a partner from 1985 to 1986.RCA's Canadian unit is Sony's oldest label...
. Yeston's Phantom is more operetta-like in style than Lloyd Webber's, seeking to reflect the 1890s period, and seeks to project a French atmosphere to reflect its Parisian setting.
Yeston also wrote In the Beginning (originally called 1-2-3-4-5), a musical based on the first five books of the Bible, presented at the Manhattan Theatre Club
Manhattan Theatre Club
Manhattan Theatre Club is a theater company located in New York City. Under the leadership of Artistic Director Lynne Meadow and Executive Producer Barry Grove, Manhattan Theatre Club has grown since its founding in 1970 from an Off-Off Broadway showcase into one of the country’s most acclaimed...
in 1987 and 1988. In 1988 Yeston recorded a studio recording of a musical called Goya: A Life in Song
Goya: A Life In Song
Goya: A Life in Song is a musical theatre work with music and lyrics by American composer Maury Yeston originally released in 1988 as a concept album....
. Plácido Domingo
Plácido Domingo
Plácido Domingo KBE , born José Plácido Domingo Embil, is a Spanish tenor and conductor known for his versatile and strong voice, possessing a ringing and dramatic tone throughout its range...
sang the role of Spanish painter Francisco de Goya, with Jennifer Rush
Jennifer Rush
Jennifer Rush is an American/German-based pop/rock singer, best known for the million-selling single "The Power of Love", which she co-wrote and which went on to be covered by Laura Branigan and Celine Dion.-Career:...
, Gloria Estefan
Gloria Estefan
Gloria María Milagrosa Fajardo García de Estefan; known professionally as Gloria Estefan is a Cuban-born American singer, songwriter, and actress. Known as the "Queen Of Latin Pop", she is in the top 100 best selling music artists with over 100 million albums sold worldwide, 31.5 million of those...
, Dionne Warwick
Dionne Warwick
Dionne Warwick is an American singer, actress and TV show host, who became a United Nations Global Ambassador for the Food and Agriculture Organization, and a United States Ambassador of Health....
, Richie Havens
Richie Havens
Richard P. "Richie" Havens is an African American folk singer and guitarist. He is best known for his intense, rhythmic guitar style , soulful covers of pop and folk songs, and his opening performance at the 1969 Woodstock Festival.-Career:Born in Brooklyn, Havens was the eldest of nine children...
, and Seiko Matsuda
Seiko Matsuda
is a Japanese pop singer-songwriter. Due to her popularity in the 1980s and her long career, she has been dubbed the "Eternal idol" by the Japanese media.- Biography :...
. Domingo was interested in starring in a stage musical about Goya and suggested to producer Alan Carr that Yeston would be the right person to create the vehicle, since Domingo had admired Yeston's work on Nine. Because of Domingo's time commitments, the musical was made into a concept album
Concept album
In music, a concept album is an album that is "unified by a theme, which can be instrumental, compositional, narrative, or lyrical." Commonly, concept albums tend to incorporate preconceived musical or lyrical ideas rather than being improvised or composed in the studio, with all songs contributing...
instead. Herman Levin loved the song "New Words" and wanted it to be the show's title. He introduced Yeston to Alan Jay Lerner
Alan Jay Lerner
Alan Jay Lerner was an American lyricist and librettist. In collaboration with Frederick Loewe, he created some of the world's most popular and enduring works of musical theatre for both the stage and on film...
to show him the song, and "Lerner thought the song was so wonderful he invited me to stop by his office every couple of weeks so he could give me pointers. He said Oscar Hammerstein
Oscar Hammerstein
Oscar Hammerstein may refer to:*Oscar Hammerstein I , cigar manufacturer, opera impresario and theatre builder*Oscar Hammerstein II , Broadway lyricist, songwriting partner of Jerome Kern and Richard Rodgers...
had done that for him and he wanted to do that for me. So, I really got coaching lessons - mentoring - in a series of meetings with Alan Jay Lerner as a result of having written that song."
Grand Hotel
Also in 1989, Tommy Tune
Tommy Tune
Thomas James "Tommy" Tune is an American actor, dancer, singer, theatre director, producer, and choreographer. Over the course of his career, he has won nine Tony Awards and the National Medal of Arts.-Early years:...
, who had directed Nine, asked Yeston to improve the score of Grand Hotel, a musical that was doing badly in tryouts. The show was based on the 1932 movie of the same name and on an unsuccessful 1958 musical called At the Grand, with a score by Robert Wright (writer)Robert Wright and George Forrest
George Forrest (author)
George Forrest was a writer of music and lyrics for musical theatre best known for the show Kismet, adapted from the works of Alexander Borodin.-Biography:...
. Yeston wrote six new songs for Grand Hotel and rewrote approximately half the lyrics in the show. After Grand Hotel opened on Broadway in November 1989, Yeston, along with Wright and Forrest, was nominated for the Tony Award for best score. The show ran for 1,077 performances.
After this, Yeston wrote December Songs
December Songs
December Songs is a song cycle by Maury Yeston, best known as a musical theatre songwriter responsible for the music and lyrics for Nine, Titanic and part of Grand Hotel. The work is a 'retelling' of Franz Schubert's Winterreise, , with a cabaret sensibility...
(1991), a song cycle
Song cycle
A song cycle is a group of songs designed to be performed in a sequence as a single entity. As a rule, all of the songs are by the same composer and often use words from the same poet or lyricist. Unification can be achieved by a narrative or a persona common to the songs, or even, as in Schumann's...
adapted from Franz Schubert
Franz Schubert
Franz Peter Schubert was an Austrian composer.Although he died at an early age, Schubert was tremendously prolific. He wrote some 600 Lieder, nine symphonies , liturgical music, operas, some incidental music, and a large body of chamber and solo piano music...
's Winterreise
Winterreise
Winterreise is a song cycle for voice and piano by Franz Schubert , a setting of 24 poems by Wilhelm Müller. It is the second of Schubert's two great song cycles on Müller's poems, the earlier being Die schöne Müllerin...
. December Songs was written as a commissioned piece for the 1991 centennial celebration of New York's Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States, located at 881 Seventh Avenue, occupying the east stretch of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street and West 57th Street, two blocks south of Central Park....
, where it was performed by cabaret singer Andrea Marcovicci
Andrea Marcovicci
Andrea Louisa Marcovicci is an American actress and singer.- Biography :Marcovicci was born in Manhattan, New York City, the daughter of Helen , a singer, and Eugen Marcovicci, a physician and internist of Romanian descent. In her teens, she decided that she wanted to be a singer, but instead...
. The work crosses over the line from classical music to Broadway to cabaret.
Titanic
The discovery of the wreckage of the R.M.S. Titanic in 1985 attracted Yeston's interest in writing a musical about the famous disaster. "What drew me to the project was the positive aspects of what the ship represented – 1) humankind's striving after great artistic works and similar technological feats, despite the possibility of tragic failure, and 2) the dreams of the passengers on board: 3rd Class, to immigrate to America for a better life; 2nd Class, to live a leisured lifestyle in imitation of the upper classes; 1st Class, to maintain their privileged positions forever. The collision with the iceberg dashed all of these dreams simultaneously, and the subsequent transformation of character of the passengers and crew had, it seemed to me, the potential for great emotional and musical expression onstage." Librettist Peter Stone
Peter Stone
Peter Hess Stone was an American writer for theater, television and movies.-Life and career:Stone was born in Los Angeles. His mother, Hilda , was a film writer, and his father, John Stone was the writer and producer of many silent films, including Shirley Temple and Charlie Chan movies...
and Yeston knew that the idea was an unusual subject for a musical. "I think if you don't have that kind of daring damn-the-torpedoes, you shouldn't be in this business. It's the safe sounding shows that often don't do well. You have to dare greatly, and I really want to stretch the bounds of the kind of expression in musical theater," Yeston explained. Yeston saw the story as unique to turn-of-the-century British culture, with its rigid social class system and its romanticization of progress through technology. "In order to depict that on the stage, because this is really a very English show, I knew I would have to have a color similar to the one found in the music of the great composers at that time, like Elgar
Edward Elgar
Sir Edward William Elgar, 1st Baronet OM, GCVO was an English composer, many of whose works have entered the British and international classical concert repertoire. Among his best-known compositions are orchestral works including the Enigma Variations, the Pomp and Circumstance Marches, concertos...
or Vaughan Williams; this was for me an opportunity to bring in the musical theater an element of the symphonic tradition that I think we really haven't had before. That was very exciting."
The high cost of Titanic's set made it impossible for the show to have traditional out of town tryouts. Titanic opened at Broadway's Lunt-Fontanne Theatre
Lunt-Fontanne Theatre
The Lunt-Fontanne Theatre is a legitimate Broadway theatre located at 205 West 46th Street in midtown-Manhattan.Designed by the architectural firm of Carrere and Hastings, it was built by producer Charles Dillingham and opened as the Globe Theatre, in honor of London's Shakespearean playhouse, on...
in 1997 to mostly negative reviews. The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
's was a rare positive assessment from the New York press: "It seemed a foregone conclusion that the show would be a failure; a musical about history's most tragic maiden voyage, in which fifteen hundred people lost their lives, was obviously preposterous.... Astonishingly, Titanic manages to be grave and entertaining, somber and joyful; little by little you realize that you are in the presence of a genuine addition to American musical theatre." The show was championed by Rosie O'Donnell
Rosie O'Donnell
Roseann "Rosie" O'Donnell is an American stand-up comedian, actress, author and television personality. She has also been a magazine editor and continues to be a celebrity blogger, LGBT rights activist, television producer and collaborative partner in the LGBT family vacation company R Family...
, who talked about the show daily on her television show, inviting the cast to perform musical numbers and giving theatre tickets to the members of her studio audiences. This publicity, along with the show's strong showing at the Tony Awards, enabled it to outlast its competition. It ran for 804 performances and 26 previews.
Recent projects
Yeston wrote the music and lyrics to Death Takes a Holiday
Death Takes a Holiday (musical)
Death Takes a Holiday is a musical with music and lyrics by Maury Yeston and a book by Peter Stone and Thomas Meehan. The story is adapted from the 1924 Italian play La Morte in Vacanza by Alberto Casella...
, a musical version of the film of the same name
Death Takes a Holiday
Death Takes a Holiday is a 1934 romantic drama starring Fredric March, Evelyn Venable and Guy Standing, based on the Italian play La Morte in Vacanze by Alberto Casella.-Synopsis:...
, with a book by Peter Stone
Peter Stone
Peter Hess Stone was an American writer for theater, television and movies.-Life and career:Stone was born in Los Angeles. His mother, Hilda , was a film writer, and his father, John Stone was the writer and producer of many silent films, including Shirley Temple and Charlie Chan movies...
and Thomas Meehan
Thomas Meehan
Thomas Meehan , was a noted British-born nurseryman, botanist and author. He worked as a Kew gardener in 1846–1848, and thereafter he moved to Germantown in Philadelphia...
. It premiered on July 14, 2011 (after previews from June 10) Off-Broadway at the Laura Pels Theatre. He is also working on another musical adaptation of Frank Loesser
Frank Loesser
Frank Henry Loesser was an American songwriter who wrote the lyrics and scores to the Broadway hits Guys and Dolls and How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying, among others. He won separate Tony Awards for the music and lyrics in both shows, as well as sharing the Pulitzer Prize for...
's Hans Christian Andersen.
Assessment
According to Show Music magazine, Yeston "has written some of the most formally structured music in recent musical theatre. But he also has the gift for creating ravishing melody – once you've heard 'Love Can't Happen' from Grand Hotel, or 'An Unusual Way' from Nine, or 'Home' from Phantom, or any number of other Yeston songs, you'll be hooked."
Family
He first married Anne Sheedy, a flutist, in 1982. In 1996, he married Julianne Waldhelm. He has three children: Jake, Max and Emma.Work
Broadway- NineNine (musical)Nine is a musical with a book by Arthur Kopit, music and lyrics by Maury Yeston. The story is based on Federico Fellini's semi-autobiographical film 8½...
(1982; revived 2003) - Grand HotelGrand Hotel (musical)Grand Hotel is a musical with a book by Luther Davis and music and lyrics by Robert Wright and George Forrest, with additional lyrics and music by Maury Yeston....
(1989) - TitanicTitanic (musical)Titanic is a musical with music and lyrics by Maury Yeston and a book by Peter Stone that opened on Broadway in 1997. It won five Tony Awards including the award for Best Musical...
(1997)
Off-Broadway
- Cloud NineCloud Nine (play)Cloud Nine is a two-act play written by British playwright Caryl Churchill after workshops with the Joint Stock Theatre Company in late 1978 and first performed at Dartington College of Arts, Devon, on 14 February 1979....
, with Larry GelbartLarry GelbartLarry Simon Gelbart was an American television writer, playwright, screenwriter and author.-Early life:...
(1981, incidental music. Theatre de Lys in NY and production in Chicago) - In the Beginning (1987; workshopped as 1-2-3-4-5 at Manhattan Theatre Club)
- Death Takes a HolidayDeath Takes a Holiday (musical)Death Takes a Holiday is a musical with music and lyrics by Maury Yeston and a book by Peter Stone and Thomas Meehan. The story is adapted from the 1924 Italian play La Morte in Vacanza by Alberto Casella...
(2011)
Film
- NineNine (film)Nine is a 2009 musical-romantic film directed and produced by Rob Marshall. The screenplay, written by Michael Tolkin and Anthony Minghella, is based on Arthur Kopit's book for the 1982 musical of the same name, which was itself suggested by Federico Fellini's semi-autobiographical film 8½...
(2009)
Other works
- "Goya: A Life In SongGoya: A Life In SongGoya: A Life in Song is a musical theatre work with music and lyrics by American composer Maury Yeston originally released in 1988 as a concept album....
" (1989; one of Barbra Streisand's pop hits, "Til I Loved You" is from the show) - PhantomPhantom (musical)Phantom is a musical with music and lyrics by Maury Yeston and a book by Arthur Kopit. Based on Gaston Leroux's 1910 novel The Phantom of the Opera, the musical was first presented in Houston, Texas in 1991....
, with Arthur Kopit (1991; numerous subsequent productions) - History Loves Company (1991, Marriott TheatreMarriott TheatreThe Marriott Theatre in Lincolnshire, Illinois, USA is a respected Chicago area regional theatre. Attached to the Marriott Lincolnshire Resort, the theatre produces an average of five musicals each year, presented in the round, as well as productions aimed at younger audiences...
) - December SongsDecember SongsDecember Songs is a song cycle by Maury Yeston, best known as a musical theatre songwriter responsible for the music and lyrics for Nine, Titanic and part of Grand Hotel. The work is a 'retelling' of Franz Schubert's Winterreise, , with a cabaret sensibility...
, a song cycleSong cycleA song cycle is a group of songs designed to be performed in a sequence as a single entity. As a rule, all of the songs are by the same composer and often use words from the same poet or lyricist. Unification can be achieved by a narrative or a persona common to the songs, or even, as in Schumann's...
(1991) - An American Cantata (for Orchestra and 2000 Voices (2000), commissioned by the Kennedy Center – a choral symphonyChoral symphonyA choral symphony is a musical composition for orchestra, choir, sometimes with solo vocalists, which in its internal workings and overall musical architecture adheres broadly to symphonic musical form. The term "choral symphony" in this context was coined by Hector Berlioz when describing his...
in three movements, which premiered on the steps of the Lincoln MemorialLincoln MemorialThe Lincoln Memorial is an American memorial built to honor the 16th President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln. It is located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. The architect was Henry Bacon, the sculptor of the main statue was Daniel Chester French, and the painter of the interior...
by the National Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Leonard SlatkinLeonard SlatkinLeonard Edward Slatkin is an American conductor and composer.-Early life and education:Slatkin was born in Los Angeles to a musical family that came from areas of the Russian Empire now in Ukraine. His father Felix Slatkin was the violinist, conductor and founder of the Hollywood String Quartet,... - Musical adaptation of Frank LoesserFrank LoesserFrank Henry Loesser was an American songwriter who wrote the lyrics and scores to the Broadway hits Guys and Dolls and How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying, among others. He won separate Tony Awards for the music and lyrics in both shows, as well as sharing the Pulitzer Prize for...
's Hans Christian Andersen (2003; music arranged by, and Book by Yeston)
Awards and recognition
- Tony Award for Best Original ScoreTony Award for Best Original ScoreThe Tony Award for Best Original Score is the Tony Award given to the composers and lyricists of the best original score written for a musical in that year. The score consists of music and lyrics...
(1982) (Nine) - Drama Desk Awards for both music and lyrics (1982) (Nine)
- Nominee for Tony Award for Best Original ScoreTony Award for Best Original ScoreThe Tony Award for Best Original Score is the Tony Award given to the composers and lyricists of the best original score written for a musical in that year. The score consists of music and lyrics...
in 1990 (Grand Hotel) - Nominee for the Drama Desk AwardDrama Desk AwardThe Drama Desk Awards, which are given annually in a number of categories, are the only major New York theater honors for which productions on Broadway, Off-Broadway, Off-Off-Broadway compete against each other in the same category...
s for Outstanding Music and Outstanding Lyrics in 1990 (Grand Hotel) - Tony Award for Best Original ScoreTony Award for Best Original ScoreThe Tony Award for Best Original Score is the Tony Award given to the composers and lyricists of the best original score written for a musical in that year. The score consists of music and lyrics...
(1997) (Titanic) - Nominee for Grammy AwardGrammy AwardA Grammy Award — or Grammy — is an accolade by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to recognize outstanding achievement in the music industry...
for Best Musical Show Album, 1998 (Titanic) - Laurence Olivier Award 2005 (Grand Hotel)
- Nominee for Golden Globe Award for Best Original SongGolden Globe Award for Best Original SongGolden Globe Award for Best Original Song was awarded for the first time in 1962 and has been awarded annually since 1965 by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association.-1960s:...
in 2010 (NineNine (film)Nine is a 2009 musical-romantic film directed and produced by Rob Marshall. The screenplay, written by Michael Tolkin and Anthony Minghella, is based on Arthur Kopit's book for the 1982 musical of the same name, which was itself suggested by Federico Fellini's semi-autobiographical film 8½...
) - Nominee for Academy Award: Best Original Song ("Take it All") for Nine
Yeston was also honored as Kayden Visiting Artist Designee 1998 (Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
) and received the Artist of the Year Award 1998, Elaine Kaufman Foundation.
Discography
- NineNine (musical)Nine is a musical with a book by Arthur Kopit, music and lyrics by Maury Yeston. The story is based on Federico Fellini's semi-autobiographical film 8½...
(original Broadway cast (1982; Grammy Award nomination), Australian cast, 2003 revival cast, London concert and others) - Goya: A Life In SongGoya: A Life In SongGoya: A Life in Song is a musical theatre work with music and lyrics by American composer Maury Yeston originally released in 1988 as a concept album....
(original studio cast, 1989) - December SongsDecember SongsDecember Songs is a song cycle by Maury Yeston, best known as a musical theatre songwriter responsible for the music and lyrics for Nine, Titanic and part of Grand Hotel. The work is a 'retelling' of Franz Schubert's Winterreise, , with a cabaret sensibility...
(1992) - Grand HotelGrand Hotel (musical)Grand Hotel is a musical with a book by Luther Davis and music and lyrics by Robert Wright and George Forrest, with additional lyrics and music by Maury Yeston....
(original Broadway cast, 1992) - PhantomPhantom (musical)Phantom is a musical with music and lyrics by Maury Yeston and a book by Arthur Kopit. Based on Gaston Leroux's 1910 novel The Phantom of the Opera, the musical was first presented in Houston, Texas in 1991....
(original cast recording, 1993) - TitanicTitanic (musical)Titanic is a musical with music and lyrics by Maury Yeston and a book by Peter Stone that opened on Broadway in 1997. It won five Tony Awards including the award for Best Musical...
(original Broadway cast (1997; Grammy Award nomination), original Dutch cast, original Hamburg cast) - An American Cantata (for Orchestra and 2000 Voices (2000), commissioned by the Kennedy Center)
- The Maury Yeston Songbook (2003; a compilation of 20 songs recorded by Betty BuckleyBetty BuckleyBetty Lynn Buckley is an American theater, film and television actress and singer. She is a Tony Award winner and Grammy Award nominee.-Early life:...
, Christine EbersoleChristine EbersoleChristine Ebersole is an American actress and singer.-Early life:Ebersole was born in Winnetka, Illinois, where she attended New Trier High School...
, Laura BenantiLaura BenantiLaura Benanti is an American actress of television, film and Broadway theatre noted for her award winning performance as Louise in the 2008 production of Gypsy.-Early years:...
, Sutton FosterSutton FosterSutton Lenore Foster is an American actress, singer and dancer. Foster has received two Tony Awards, in 2002 for her role of Millie Dillmount in Thoroughly Modern Millie and in 2011 for her role of Reno Sweeney in Anything Goes...
, Alice Ripley, Johnny RodgersJohnny Rodgers (singer)Johnny Rodgers is an internationally-celebrated singer-songwriter, pianist, Broadway star, and recording...
and others) - Christmas in the Stars: Star Wars Christmas AlbumChristmas in the StarsChristmas in the Stars: Star Wars Christmas Album is a record album produced in 1980 by RSO Records. It features recordings of Star Wars-themed Christmas songs and stories about a droid factory where the robots make toys year-round for "S. Claus"....
(lyrics)
Further reading
- New York Times, May 9, 1982, sect.2, pp. 1, 24; May 10, 1982, p. C13; May 23, 1982; pp. D3, 23; May 23, 1997, sect. 2, p. 6; April 24, 1997, p. C13; June 1, 1997, sect. 2, p. 1; June 2, 1997, p. B1, July 20, 1997, sect. 2, p. 5.
- Newsweek, May 5, 1997, p. 70-73.
External links
- The Official Website of Composer and Lyricist Maury Yeston
- Maury Yeston at the The Internet Off Broadway DatabaseLortel ArchivesThe Lortel Archives, or the Internet Off-Broadway Database is an online database that catalogues theatre productions shown off-Broadway.The archives are named in honor of actress and theatrical producer Lucille Lortel.-See also:...
- 2008 interview with Yeston at Broadway.com
- Pogrebin, Robin. "A Song in His Psyche, As Hummable as Fame". The New York Times, May 19, 2003
- Information about Yeston's recordings
- "Professor, Students Participate in American Cantata". The Mason Gazette, June 29, 2000
- 2003 review of "The Maury Yeston Songbook"
- 2000 review of "In the Beginning"