Music is Lloyd-Webber's Music of the Night (Phantom of the Opera)

Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber

Lloyd Webber, Sir Andrew: (1948- ), British composer, whose popular stage musicals include Jesus Christ Superstar (1971; in collaboration with Timothy Rice), Cats (1981), and Phantom of the Opera (1986). He was born in London and educated at Oxford University and at the Royal College of Music. The son of the director of the London College of Music, Lloyd Webber began his musical training as a child. He published his first composition at the age of nine. In 1967, he was still a student when, with friend Timothy Rice, he wrote Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat for a school performance. The musical was later produced professionally at the international arts festival in Edinburgh, Scotland, and at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York in 1972. A recording was released in 1972, but the show did not reach the New York stage until 1981. Lloyd Webber and Rice next collaborated on Jesus Christ Superstar (1970). It was issued as a record album and sold more than 3 million copies before the show opened on Broadway. The musical was nominated for five Tony Awards, and Lloyd Webber, as composer, won the Drama Desk Award (1973). It became the longest-running musical in the history of British theater and was produced throughout the world. The next Lloyd Webber-Rice collaboration was Evita (1978). It opened in New York in 1979, where it won the New York Drama Critics Circle Award, seven Tony Awards, and a Grammy. Lloyd Webber's Cats (1981) won two Tony Awards, and Phantom of the Opera (opened London 1986, New York 1988) won seven Tony Awards. Lloyd Webber also wrote the music for Starlight Express (1987) and Aspects of Love (1990). He was knighted in 1992.


"Lloyd Webber, Sir Andrew," Microsoft (R) Encarta. Copyright (c) 1994 Microsoft Corporation. Copyright (c) 1994 Funk & Wagnall's Corporation.