Composers you like
Composers you like
PUPPETMAN
Understudy Joined: 12/28/07
#1Composers you like
Posted: 2/22/08 at 5:03pm
On my previousd thread, I asked about COMPOSERS you dislike and many got off track with listing lyrics. What I would like to know about is the melodies NOT lyrics. Put the words out of your thoughts.
Composers: Jerry Herman
Alan Menken
ALWebber - listen to some recordings of just his melodies
Jule Styne
#2re: Composers you like
Posted: 2/22/08 at 5:08pmI really like Scott Alan!
"Everytime you step on that stage it is somebody's first Broadway show and somebody's last Broadway show. Make it count."
snl89
Broadway Legend Joined: 10/4/05
#2re: Composers you like
Posted: 2/22/08 at 5:09pm
Jason Robert Brown def makes top of my list. I think he is BRILLIANT
others I love:
-Jonathan Larson
-Duncan Sheik (I know, I know, he's only written SA so far, but I really love the score haha)
-Tom Kitt
-Scott Alan
-Elton John
-Michael Arden (I've really only heard like 2 of his songs from Easter Rising, but they're SO gorgeous!)
So yeah, I'm def a fan of contemporary, more "modern rock" composers. I just tend to relate more to them than to the more classical ones
I don't need a life that's normal. That's way too far away. But something next to normal would be okay. Something next to normal is what I'd like to try. Close enough to normal to get by.
Updated On: 2/22/08 at 05:09 PM
#3re: Composers you like
Posted: 2/22/08 at 5:16pm
Adam Guettel, Richard Rodgers, Leonard Bernstein, Jerome Kern, Stephen Sondheim, John Kander, Andrew Lloyd Webber (yes I admit it). As for lyricists, Sondheim is by far my favorite.
Updated On: 2/22/08 at 05:16 PM
Pianist3912
Leading Actor Joined: 7/12/07
#4re: Composers you like
Posted: 2/22/08 at 6:37pm
Scott Alan, Irving Berlin, Leonard Bernstein, William Finn, Adam Guettel, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Stephen Schwartz, Marc Shaiman, Stephen Sondheim, Jule Styne, Maury Yeston
Updated On: 2/22/08 at 06:37 PM
#5re: Composers you like
Posted: 2/22/08 at 10:21pm
Stephen Sondheim
Jule Styne
Duncan Sheik
Adam Guettel
Scott Frankel
I know you.
I know you.
I know you.
#6re: Composers you like
Posted: 2/22/08 at 10:59pm
Andrew Lloyd Webber
Mogas Hogan
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#7re: Composers you like
Posted: 2/23/08 at 12:40am
Ricky Ian Gordon.
ahhhhhhhhh
"Picture "The View," with the wisecracking, sympathetic sweethearts of that ABC television show replaced by a panel of embittered, suffering or enraged Arab women" -the Times review of Black Eyed
#8re: Composers you like
Posted: 2/23/08 at 12:46am
Lynn Ahrens
Leonard Bernstein
Scott Frankel
Adam Guettel
John Kander
Frank Loesser
Stephen Sondheim
Jeanine Tesori
"Some people can thrive and bloom living life in a living room, that's perfect for some people of one hundred and five. But I at least gotta try, when I think of all the sights that I gotta see, all the places I gotta play, all the things that I gotta be at"
#10re: Composers you like
Posted: 2/23/08 at 7:11am
How typical that the thread for composers you don’t like is three pages long, while the thread for composers you like only has a handful of responses. Hopefully it’s just because it’s a new thread and that will change, but I doubt it. Folks around here tend to dwell on the negative. Anyway here’s my list of composers I love:
Michael John LaChiusa
Stephen Sondheim
Maury Yeston
Adam Guettel
Leonard Bernstein
John Kander
Those are the first ones that come to mind. Of course there are shows by other composers that I love, but those are the composers whose shows/music I always love.
Boq101
Broadway Legend Joined: 11/20/06
#11re: Composers you like
Posted: 2/23/08 at 9:46amI love Rodgers and Hammerstein, but I'm definitely a bigger Sondheim fan. After that I prefer newer composers like Guettel, La Chiusa, JRB, Finn.
shesamarshmallow
Broadway Legend Joined: 3/23/06
#12re: Composers you like
Posted: 2/23/08 at 9:50amRight now I'm all about Ryan Scott Oliver, Joe Iconis and Bobby Cronin.
broadwayunderstudies.com - most underrated performers on broadway
#14re: Composers you like
Posted: 2/23/08 at 12:09pm
Stephen Sondheim, definitely.
Also Yann Tiersen, Michael Nyman, and Philip Glass (I'm into minimalism lately)
Tan Dun's Ghost Opera is fantastic.
And I can't get over Samuel Barber's Adaigo for strings.
So, I guess there's some specific pieces in there too... ah well.
"The art of Illusion is the art of love; and the art of love is the blood-red heart of the world." - Tony Kushner, "The Illusion"
Sondheim_Geek
Broadway Star Joined: 2/20/07
#15re: Composers you like
Posted: 2/23/08 at 12:26pm
Jason Robert Brown
Stephen Sondheim
William Finn
Laurence O’Keefe
#16re: Composers you like
Posted: 2/23/08 at 12:35pm
musical_devotee, the discord between your avatar and answer slays me.
anyway, my answers...
Stephen Sondheim, natch
Leonard Bernstein
Adam Guettel
Maury Yeston
Lucy Simon
Scott Frankel
Jeff Blumenkrantz
John Kander
Marvin Hamlisch
and probably some more.
When I see the phrase "the ____ estate", I imagine a vast mansion in the country full of monocled men and high-collared women receiving letters about productions across the country and doing spit-takes at whatever they contain.
-Kad
Updated On: 2/23/08 at 12:35 PM
sondhead
Broadway Star Joined: 10/25/06
#17re: Composers you like
Posted: 2/23/08 at 1:52pm
Sondheim
Guettel
Hamlisch
Menken (When he's not blah-in it up)
O'Keefe (Save Legally Blonde)
Basically anyone who doesn't pick the same 3 chords over and over again and then pastes angsty lyrics over them (read: 99% of the "new" musical theatre writing being done today)
#18re: Composers you like
Posted: 2/23/08 at 2:54pm
Sondhead - I wholeheartedly agree that the 3-chord structure is becomming the death of musical theatre. Thus, less predictable music like Sondheim is a welcome change and a blessing (I like your screen name, by the way)
However, as a fan of minimalism, the 3-chord structure (or basically anything semi-repetitive) can be very effective if done correctly. I'm not sure how well it works in musical theatre (not being able to think of a good example off the top of my head) but in pop music (term used broadly) it works extremely well.
Example - The Album Leaf - songs are typically a very simple theme, usually just a few chords, that builds and builds until it morphs into something else. Beautiful and heartbreaking
Another Example - the song "Is There A Ghost" by Band of Horses - it is a rock song, but the 3 chords repeated over and over (along with the same 3 lines of lyrics over and over) is somehow extremely haunting.
"The art of Illusion is the art of love; and the art of love is the blood-red heart of the world." - Tony Kushner, "The Illusion"
#20re: Composers you like
Posted: 2/23/08 at 7:23pm
"Another Example - the song "Is There A Ghost" by Band of Horses - it is a rock song, but the 3 chords repeated over and over (along with the same 3 lines of lyrics over and over) is somehow extremely haunting."
Agreed, and I love that song.
philly03
Broadway Legend Joined: 9/20/07
#21re: Composers you like
Posted: 2/23/08 at 8:57pm
My favourite two are pretty "generic" so to say..
Andrew Lloyd Webber
Frank Wildhorn
& I'm also a fan of Guettel!
TulitaPepsi
Broadway Legend Joined: 7/13/04
#22re: Composers you like
Posted: 2/23/08 at 9:12pm
All the old guard, plus:
Adam Guettel
Deb Abramson
Deb Barsha
Jeff Blumenkrantz
Steve Marzullo
Joseph Thalken
Joe & David Zellnik
Peter Mills
Jeff Bowen & Hunter Bell
Bill Finn isn't working on anything now, alas.
"Hurry up and get into your conga clothes - we've got to do something to save this show!"
Updated On: 2/23/08 at 09:12 PM
chris d
Broadway Star Joined: 4/21/07
#23re: Composers you like
Posted: 2/23/08 at 10:45pm
Stephen Sondheim
Kurt Weill
Leonard Bernstein
John Kander
Claude-Michel Schönberg
Duncan Sheik
Updated On: 2/23/08 at 10:45 PM
#24re: Composers you like
Posted: 2/24/08 at 2:11am
These composers and teh scores listed are sourses of endless pleasure...
Victor Herbert (BABES IN TOYLAND, MLLE. MODISTE)
Jerome Kern (SHOW BOAT, ROBERTA)
Irving Berlin (ANNIE GET YOUR GUN, CALL ME MADAM)
George Gershwin (GIRL CRAZY, PORGY AND BESS)
Cole Porter (ANYTHING GOES, CAN-CAN)
Richard Rodgers (CAROUSEL, NO STRINGS)
Harold Arlen (ST. LOUIS WOMAN, HOUSE OF FLOWERS)
Jule Styne (GYPSY, FUNNY GIRL)
Fritz Loewe (BRIGADOON, MY FAIR LADY)
Frank Loesser (GUYS & DOLLS, THE MOST HAPPY FELLA)
Jerry Herman (MAME, MACK & MABEL)
John Kander (CABARET, CHICAGO)
Stephen Sondheim (A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC, SWEENEY TODD)
Stephen Flaherty (RAGTIME, A MAN OF NO IMPORTANCE)
Cast albums are NOT "soundtracks."
Live theatre does not use a "soundtrack." If it did, it wouldn't be live theatre!
I host a weekly one-hour radio program featuring cast album selections as well as songs by cabaret, jazz and theatre artists. The program, FRONT ROW CENTRE is heard Sundays 9 to 10 am and also Saturdays from 8 to 9 am (eastern times) on www.proudfm.com
#25re: Composers you like
Posted: 2/25/08 at 11:17am
I'm only repeating what others have said, but:
Adam Guettel
Stephen Sondheim
Frank Loesser
Leonard Bernstein
I also love Jason Robert Brown and Cole Porter, but only really if their lyrics are added into the mix.
I really need to listen to more Kurt Weill...
