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Bob Telson | |
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| Born | May 14, 1949 Cannes, France |
| Genres | World Music, theatrical, classical |
| Occupation(s) | Composer, musician |
| Instrument(s) | Piano |
| Years active | 1968–present |
| Labels | Acqua, Nonesuch, Island, Warner, Naxos |
| Website | bobtelson.com |
Robert Eria Telson (born May 14, 1949) is an American composer, songwriter, and pianist best known for his work in musical theater and film, for which he has received Tony, Pulitzer, and Academy Award nominations.
Robert Eria Telson was born in Cannes, France, in 1949. He grew up in Brooklyn, New York, son of Paula (née Blackman) and David Telson. He began studying piano when he was five years old. By nine he had already performed a Mozart piece on television and given a concert of his own compositions. At 14, he wrote 72 love songs for his first girlfriend, Margie. At 16 and 17 he studied organ, counterpoint and harmony in France with Nadia Boulanger. He followed this with a degree in music from Harvard University in 1970. Telson also played organ and composed original songs for a rock band called The Bristols, while he was a high school student at Poly Prep in Brooklyn, New York. Several of these were recorded at Decca Studios but never released. At Harvard, he formed another group called Groundspeed, which brought him back to the Decca Studios in 1967 to record a demo recording of his songs "L-12 East" and "In a Dream" with producer Dick Jacobs. This was released by the label in 1968. After the demise of Groundspeed, Telson formed the band Revolutionary Music Collective, which included then-unknown singer Bonnie Raitt on lead vocals.
After graduation from Harvard, Telson's first professional work was as a member of the Philip Glass Ensemble from 1972 to 1974. After that began his immersion in ethnic world music, as the pianist of salsa bandleaders Tito Puente and Machito. He was then organist of the gospel group Five Blind Boys of Alabama, for whom he also composed, arranged and produced. Collaborating with director/writer Lee Breuer, in 1983 he composed the musical The Gospel at Colonus , [1] an adaptation of Sophocles's Oedipus tale, featuring Morgan Freeman, the Five Blind Boys and the Soul Stirrers. Newsweek Magazine called it: "The best white man’s capturings of the essence of black music since Gershwin's Porgy and Bess."
As a composer, Telson received an Academy Award nomination for his song "Calling You" from the movie Bagdad Café , [2] as well as Pulitzer, [3] Grammy and Tony Award nominations for his Broadway musicals, The Gospel at Colonus and Chronicle of a Death Foretold, an adaptation of the Gabriel García Márquez novel.
Telson has composed soundtracks for American, French, German and Argentinian films (including five for Percy Adlon), as well as a ballet score for Twyla Tharp ( Sextet ) His songs have been recorded by many international artists, such as Barbra Streisand, Natalie Cole, George Benson, Joe Cocker, Celine Dion, Wynton Marsalis, k.d. lang, Shawn Colvin, Caetano Veloso, Gal Costa, Etta James, Jeff Buckley, and George Michael.
According to The New York Times : "Mr. Telson has a remarkable talent for relating to musicians from diverse musical cultures and for writing stirring, dramatic music in non-Western European idioms." [4] They also described his music as "a compendium of world music styles brilliantly reimagined, embellished and sometimes made to overlap by Mr. Telson, a classically trained American composer and multi-instrumentalist". [5]
Telson's latest CD, entitled Defying the Distances was released in 2019. His new musical, “Bantu,” with libretto and lyrics by Graciela Corso, was presented in concert version in New York in October,2023.
The Pulitzer Prize for Drama is one of the seven American Pulitzer Prizes that are annually awarded for Letters, Drama, and Music. It is one of the original Pulitzers, for the program was inaugurated in 1917 with seven prizes, four of which were awarded that year. It recognizes a theatrical work staged in the U.S. during the preceding calendar year.
Michael John LaChiusa is an American musical theatre and opera composer, lyricist, and librettist. He is best known for musically esoteric shows such as Hello Again, Marie Christine, The Wild Party, and See What I Wanna See. He was nominated for four Tony Awards in 2000 for his score and book for both Marie Christine and The Wild Party and received another nomination in 1996 for his work on the libretto for Chronicle of a Death Foretold.
Paul Rudolf Parsifal "Percy" Adlon was a German director, screenwriter, and producer. He is associated with the New German Cinema movement, and is known for his strong female characters and positive portrayals of lesbian relationships. He is best known for his 1987 film Bagdad Cafe, starring Marianne Sägebrecht, CCH Pounder and Jack Palance and subsequent films such as Rosalie Goes Shopping (1989), Salmonberries (1991) and Younger and Younger (1993). Adlon's films were shown in competition regularly at international film festivals, such as the Cannes Film Festival, the Berlin International Film Festival, and others.
Bagdad Cafe is a 1987 English-language West German film directed by Percy Adlon. It is a comedy-drama set in a remote truck stop and motel in the Mojave Desert in the U.S. state of California. Inspired by Carson McCullers' novella The Ballad of the Sad Café (1951), the film centers on two women who have recently separated from their husbands, and the blossoming friendship that ensues. It runs 95 minutes in the U.S. and 108 minutes in the German version. The song "Calling You", sung by Jevetta Steele and written by Bob Telson, was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song at the 61st Academy Awards.
Jevetta Steele is an American R&B and gospel music singer.
Esser Leopold "Lee" Breuer was an Obie Award-winning and Pulitzer-, Grammy-, Emmy- and Tony-nominated American playwright, theater director, academic, educator, filmmaker, poet, and lyricist. Breuer taught and directed on six continents.
"Calling You" is a song from the 1987 film, Bagdad Cafe. It was originally recorded by American R&B and gospel music singer Jevetta Steele. Bob Telson, the songwriter, also recorded his version. Both versions appeared on the movie soundtrack. The song was critically acclaimed and nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song at the 61st Academy Awards.
Gary Katz is an American record producer, best known for his work on albums by Steely Dan. Katz has also produced numerous other recording artists and assisted in the discovery and signing of a number of subsequently successful acts. He has four Grammy nominations.
The Gospel at Colonus is an African-American musical version of Sophocles's tragedy, Oedipus at Colonus. The show was created in 1983 by the experimental-theatre director Lee Breuer, one of the founders of the seminal American avant-garde theatre company Mabou Mines, and composer Bob Telson. The musical was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The show had a brief run on Broadway in 1988.
The Prince Theater is a non-profit theatrical producing organization located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and specializing in music theatre, including opera, music drama, musical comedy and experimental forms. Founded in 1984 as the American Music Theater Festival by Marjorie Samoff, Eric Salzman and Ron Kaiserman, for the first 15 years AMTF performed in various venues throughout Philadelphia. In March 1999, AMTF moved into the renovated Midtown Theater and changed its name in honor of Broadway producer and director Harold Prince. AMTF/Prince Theater has produced 92 world premieres and has sent 81 productions to theaters in New York and worldwide.
William Alexander Galison is an American harmonica player.
Chronicle of a Death Foretold is a musical with a book and lyrics by Graciela Daniele and Jim Lewis and music by Bob Telson. It is based on Gabriel García Márquez's 1981 novella of the same name.
Thomas Robert Kitt is an American composer, conductor, orchestrator, and musician. For his score for the musical Next to Normal, he shared the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Drama with Brian Yorkey. He has also won two Tony Awards and an Outer Critics Circle Award for Next to Normal, as well as Tony and Outer Critics Circle nominations for If/Then and SpongeBob SquarePants. He has been nominated for eight Drama Desk Awards, winning one, and a Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album for Jagged Little Pill in 2021.
St. Ann's Warehouse is a performing arts institution in Brooklyn, New York City. It began when the St. Ann's and the Holy Trinity Church on Montague Street was converted into a venue for classical music in 1980. Initially known as Arts at St. Ann's, proceeds from the stage's performances were used to aid in renovating the building.
Crystal Johnson is an American singer and songwriter from Brooklyn, New York. She has performed in a variety of stage productions and has collaborated with a wide array of well-known artists including Anthony Hamilton, Dr. Dre, Heavy D, Mobb Deep, Pete Rock & CL Smooth, Angie Stone, Usher and many others.
Newsies: The Musical is a musical with music by Alan Menken, lyrics by Jack Feldman, and a book by Harvey Fierstein. The show is based on the 1992 musical film of the same name, which in turn was inspired by the real-life Newsboys Strike of 1899 in New York City, with Fierstein's script adapted from the film's screenplay by Bob Tzudiker and Noni White.
Eric "Ricky" McKinnie is a blind American gospel singer, drummer, radio show host, recording studio owner, stage actor, and songwriter, best known for performing with the Blind Boys of Alabama, a gospel group that has won six Grammy Awards and received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Recording Academy. McKinnie also serves as road business manager for the group. McKinnie has performed with a variety of gospel acts, including the Gospel Keynotes and his own group, the Ricky McKinnie Singers.
The Institutional Radio Choir was a gospel choir that recorded between 1962-2003. The choir began in 1954 at the Institutional COGIC in Brooklyn, NY, under Bishop Carl E Williams Sr. After recording an album entitled: "Well Done," the choir backed up Shirley Caesar on her two albums, I'll Go and My Testimony. Caesar allotted the choir's director two songs on the album, one of which was entitled (When Trouble Comes) Stretch Out. The song went on to become a gospel standard, especially in Pentecostal circles. The choir went on to record over 20 albums, most of which charted in the Top 10 on the Gospel Billboard charts.
A Strange Loop is a musical with book, music, and lyrics by Michael R. Jackson, and winner of the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. First produced off-Broadway in 2019, then staged in Washington, D.C. in 2021, A Strange Loop premiered on Broadway at the Lyceum Theatre in April 2022. The show won Best Musical and Best Book of a Musical at the 75th Tony Awards.
J.D. Steele is an American singer, songwriter, arranger and choir director best known for his work with Prince, as the J.D. Steele Singers in "The Gospel at Colonus", in musical theatre, and as a member of the vocal group The Steeles.
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