Gary Adler is an American composer and musical director based in New York. He received two 2005 Drama Desk nominations (along with Michael Patrick Walker) for his music and lyrics for the off-Broadway show Altar Boyz, which had its premiere in the New York Musical Theatre Festival the year before. As a composer, Adler has written songs for Disney Channel's Johnny and the Sprites and Dance Dance Revolution, which was presented by Les Freres Corbusier in December 2008. Mr. Adler is a graduate of the University of Michigan where he studied under William Bolcom
Gary has served as the musical director for numerous shows, most notably Avenue Q . His other NYC conducting credits include Chita Rivera: The Dancer's Life , Urinetown , The Fantasticks and Nunsense . [1]
In music, an arrangement is a musical adaptation of an existing composition. Differences from the original composition may include reharmonization, melodic paraphrasing, orchestration, or formal development. Arranging differs from orchestration in that the latter process is limited to the assignment of notes to instruments for performance by an orchestra, concert band, or other musical ensemble. Arranging "involves adding compositional techniques, such as new thematic material for introductions, transitions, or modulations, and endings. Arranging is the art of giving an existing melody musical variety". In jazz, a memorized (unwritten) arrangement of a new or pre-existing composition is known as a head arrangement.
Robert Louis Fosse was an American actor, choreographer, dancer, and film and stage director. He directed and choreographed musical works on stage and screen, including the stage musicals The Pajama Game (1954), Damn Yankees (1955), How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (1961), Sweet Charity (1966), Pippin (1972), and Chicago (1975). He directed the films Sweet Charity (1969), Cabaret (1972), Lenny (1974), All That Jazz (1979), and Star 80 (1983).
The Band Wagon is a 1953 American musical romantic comedy film directed by Vincente Minnelli, starring Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse. It tells the story of an aging musical star who hopes a Broadway show will revive his career. However, the play's director wants to make it a pretentious retelling of the Faust legend and brings in a prima ballerina who clashes with the star. Along with An American in Paris (1951) and Singin' in the Rain (1952), it is regarded as one of the finest Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer musicals, although it was a box-office disappointment on first release.
Jonathan David Larson was an American composer, lyricist and playwright most famous for writing the musicals Rent and Tick, Tick... Boom!, which explored the social issues of multiculturalism, substance use disorder, and homophobia. He received three posthumous Tony Awards and a posthumous Pulitzer Prize for Drama for Rent.
Stephen Lawrence Schwartz is an American musical theatre lyricist and composer. In a career spanning over five decades, Schwartz has written such hit musicals as Godspell (1971), Pippin (1972), and Wicked (2003). He has contributed lyrics to a number of successful films, including Pocahontas (1995), The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996), The Prince of Egypt, and Enchanted (2007).
Jerry Ross was an American lyricist and composer whose works with Richard Adler for the musical theater include The Pajama Game and Damn Yankees, winners of Tony Awards in 1955 and 1956, respectively, in both the "Best Musical" and "Best Composer and Lyricist" categories.
Jerome Robbins was an American dancer, choreographer, film director, theatre director and producer who worked in classical ballet, on stage, film, and television.
Richard Adler was an American lyricist, writer, composer and producer of several Broadway shows.
Michael Bennett was an American musical theatre director, writer, choreographer, and dancer. He won seven Tony Awards for his choreography and direction of Broadway shows and was nominated for an additional eleven.
Samuel Hans Adler is an American composer, conductor, author, and professor. During the course of a professional career which ranges over six decades he has served as a faculty member at both the University of Rochester's Eastman School of Music and the Juilliard School. In addition, he is credited with founding and conducting the Seventh Army Symphony Orchestra which participated in the cultural diplomacy initiatives of the United States in Germany and throughout Europe in the aftermath of World War II. Adler's musical catalogue includes over 400 published compositions. He has been honored with several awards including Germany's Order of Merit – Officer's Cross.
Johnny and the Sprites is an American children's musical television show that aired every weekend on the "Playhouse Disney" block on Disney Channel. The show was created by, produced by, and starred John Tartaglia. The show's theme song was written by Stephen Schwartz. Each episode of the show features a musical number, many of which are written by various notable Broadway composers such as Gary Adler, Bobby Lopez, Laurence O'Keefe, Michael Patrick Walker, and others. The Sprites and all of the other creatures that inhabit Johnny's world were designed by Michael Schupbach. The set was designed by Laura Brock.
Gary William Friedman is an American musical theatre, symphonic, film and television composer. His career began in the 1960s in New York City as a saxophonist in an improvisational ensemble and as a composer for experimental theater. Friedman's 1970 musical, The Me Nobody Knows opened Off-Broadway and won the Obie Award for Best Music of a Musical before moving to Broadway and earning five Tony Award nominations. Friedman has also composed scores for numerous American films and television series such as PBS's children's television series, The Electric Company. His orchestral and operatic compositions have been commissioned by festivals and venues including the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
Altar Boyz is a musical comedy with music and lyrics by Gary Adler and Michael Patrick Walker and book by Kevin Del Aguila. Centering on a fictitious Christian boy band from Ohio, the show satirizes, among other things, the phenomenon of boy bands and the popularity of Christian-themed music in contemporary American culture. It began an Off Broadway run on March 1, 2005, and closed on January 10, 2010, after sixteen previews and 2,032 regular performances, making it the 9th longest-running Off-Broadway musical of all time.
Henry Krieger is an American musical theatre composer. He most notably wrote the music for the Broadway shows Dreamgirls, The Tap Dance Kid (1983), and Side Show (1997).
Michael Patrick Walker is a composer, lyricist, writer, and musician.
Aaron Smith, better known as Shwayze, is an American rapper. His first single "Buzzin'" peaked at No. 46 on the Billboard Hot 100. His second single "Corona and Lime," reached No. 23 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the US and No. 3 in the US iTunes Store. Shwayze's self-titled debut album, which Cisco Adler co-wrote, was released on August 19, 2008.
Bruce Adler was an American Broadway actor. After debuting on the Broadway stage in the 1979 revival of Oklahoma!, he went on to a career that saw him nominated for Tony Awards as Best Featured Actor in a Musical for Those Were the Days (1991) and Crazy For You (1992). His film work was limited to voice work in animated films, notably providing the singing voice for the peddler of the 1992 Disney film Aladdin and the 1996 sequel Aladdin and the King of Thieves.
Peter Matz was an American musician, composer, arranger and conductor. His musical career in film, theater, television and studio recording spanned fifty years, and he worked with a number of prominent artists, including Marlene Dietrich, Noël Coward and Barbra Streisand. Matz won three Emmys and a Grammy Award and is best known for his work on Streisand's early albums as well as for his work as the orchestral conductor and musical director for The Carol Burnett Show.
Joseph Rumshinsky (1881–1956) was a Jewish composer born near Vilna, Lithuania. Along with Sholom Secunda, Alexander Olshanetsky and Abraham Ellstein, he is considered one of the "big four" composers and conductors of American Yiddish theater.
Christopher Edward Adler was an American lyricist and theatre director. His best-known works as a lyricist were the musical Jean Seberg and the show Shirley MacLaine on Broadway.