by Daniel Hathaway
HAPPENING TODAY:
12:00 pm – Trinity Cathedral Brownbag Concert. CSU Percussion Ensemble. Trinity Cathedral, 2230 Euclid Ave., Cleveland. Free.
7:30 pm – CIM Insiders. Ilya Kaler, violin and Daniel Shapiro, piano. Mozart’s Sonata in A, K. 305, Prokofiev’s Sonata No. 1, and Strauss’ Violin Sonata in E-flat. Mixon Hall, 11021 East Blvd., Cleveland. Free.
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
By Mike Telin
On March 18, 1927, legendary composer of musical theater John Kander was born in Kansas City, Missouri.
A classically trained musician, Kander studied at the Oberlin Conservatory and later at Columbia University, where his teachers included Douglas Moore, Jack Beeson, and Otto Luening.
Early in his career he served as rehearsal pianist and then dance arranger for the original productions of Gypsy and Irma la Douce. He composed his first Broadway score, A Family Affair, with lyricists and book writers (and brothers) James and William Goldman.
Kander began his nearly four-decade-long career with lyricist Fred Ebb with the 1965 musical Flora, The Red Menace, starring the young Liza Minnelli. The song-writing duo (photo: Kander on the left) went on to write such classic musicals as Cabaret, Chicago, and Kiss of the Spiderwoman, along with many other shows.
Since the passing of Fred Ebb in 2004, Kander has continued to write musicals with other lyricists. He composed an eloquent art song, The Ballad of Sullivan Ballou, for soprano Renée Fleming.
Some of this information came in an email from music critic Donald Rosenberg, who has a special interest in American musical theater and has written about Kander. “He’s really nice,” Rosenberg wrote. “I interviewed him in Oberlin a bunch of years back when the college did a production of Flora, The Red Menace.”
Summarizing his music, Rosenberg noted that Kander “exemplifies a Broadway composer steeped in classical traditions while also being fully versed in popular musical forms (jazz, Latin, folk) that have long been woven into musical theater. He can be effortlessly hip, as in the vamps that run through many of his scores (think All That Jazz) or lyrical (the waltzing “You” from The Visit is particularly haunting).”
During his prolific career, Kander has amassed numerous awards including three Tonys, two Emmys, and two Grammys. In 1991 he was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame in 1991 and along with his long-time collaborator Fred Ebb, was the recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors award for Lifetime Achievement.
Click here to watch a video interview with Kander produced by the Dramatists Guild Foundation as part of the organization’s Legacy Project.
Happy 98th, Mr. Kander!
