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Larry Blank is an American composer, arranger, orchestrator and conductor. He has worked in film, theatre and television, and has been nominated for a Tony Award three times.
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Larry Blank is an American composer, arranger, orchestrator and conductor. He has worked in film, theatre and television, and has been nominated for a Tony Award three times.
Blank was born in Brooklyn, New York on July 15, 1952, and grew up in Bayside, Queens.[ citation needed ] He began piano lessons at 16 and gained experience by performing as a rehearsal pianist, playing and conducting at various summer-stock theaters and dinner theaters around the United States.[ citation needed ]
Blank studied drama at the High School of Performing Arts, Manhattan.[ citation needed ] He was mentored by Don Pippin, Irwin Kostal and Ralph Burns. Blank later studied conducting with Rudi Bennett and piano with Leslie Harnley. [1] [ self-published source ] Blank then moved to Los Angeles to continue his studies in orchestration and composition under Kostal.[ citation needed ]
Along with Alfred Newman and Glen Roven, Blank was one of the youngest conductors in Broadway history.[ citation needed ] He first conducted on Broadway at the age of 22, leading the orchestra as a replacement conductor for Goodtime Charley and other shows.[ citation needed ] On the recommendation of Donald Pippin, he was hired by Michael Bennett and Marvin Hamlisch as music director for the International Touring Co. productions of A Chorus Line and They're Playing Our Song.[ citation needed ] Several other productions followed, including Evita, Sugar Babies, La Cage Aux Folles , The Phantom of the Opera, Teddy and Alice , Onward Victoria , Copperfield , [2] and Colette.[ citation needed ]
In March 1999, Blank conducted the 20th anniversary production of Sweeney Todd at the Ahmanson Theatre, Los Angeles, with Kelsey Grammer and Christine Baranski.[ citation needed ] In 2002, he was asked to conduct Sweeney Todd for the Kennedy Center Sondheim Celebration, as well as a subsequent production for Wolf Trap Opera.[ citation needed ]
Blank is a regular guest conductor and orchestrator for Friday Night is Music Night on BBC Radio Two. [3] He has been associated with the Olivier Awards for 10 years as a musical supervisor and conductor. [3] Blank is the resident POPS conductor for the Pasadena Symphony, California.[ citation needed ] He has guest conducted for the Opera de Toulon, including conducting their production of Bernstein's Wonderful Town .[ citation needed ]
Blank was the musical director for Katie Couric's Hollywood Hits Broadway and her fund-raising tribute to West Side Story .[ citation needed ] In February 2020, he conducted for Jerry Herman's memorial at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre. [4]
Blank has arranged two songs for the Boston Pops tribute to Jerry Herman, and two songs for American Idol.[ citation needed ] He was the conductor and arranger of Jerry Herman's title song for the film Barney's Great Adventure.[ citation needed ]
Blank has created orchestrations for Tommy Tune: White Tie and Tails, Three Coins in the Fountain , White Christmas and Roman Holiday at The Muny.[ citation needed ] He orchestrated and arranged Let the Eagle Fly, a musical about labor organizer Cesar Chavez.[ citation needed ] On the request from the composer Charles Fox, Blank orchestrated the ballet Zorro, performed by the San Francisco Ballet .[ citation needed ] He was the orchestrator for Barbara Cook’s christmas CD Count Your Blessings, as well as Christine Andreas' CD Piaf: No Regrets.[ citation needed ] Blank was also the orchestrator for Jerry Herman's concept recording Miss Spectacular .[ citation needed ]
In 2012, his orchestrations were performed during Singin' in the Rain at the Palace Theatre, London.[ citation needed ] In 2019, Blank orchestrated and conducted the music for FX's Fosse/Verdon for the composer Alex Lacamoire.[ citation needed ] He was the arranger, orchestrator, and conductor for Dolly Parton's 2020 film, Christmas On The Square.[ citation needed ]
Blank has been nominated for a Tony Award three times, for his orchestrations of Catch Me If You Can (with Marc Shaiman), [5] White Christmas , and The Drowsy Chaperone . Blank's orchestration of eight songs for the Broadway production of The Producers was acknowledged by Doug Besterman and Mel Brooks at the 2001 Tony Awards after the show won Best Original Score.[ citation needed ]
He has been nominated six times for the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Orchestrations for White Christmas, The Drowsy Chaperone, Catch Me If You Can, A Christmas Story, Honeymoon in Vegas and Fiddler on the Roof.[ citation needed ]
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).
John Waldo Green was an American songwriter, composer, musical arranger, conductor and pianist. He was given the nickname "Beulah" by colleague Conrad Salinger. His most famous song was one of his earliest, "Body and Soul" from the revue Three's a Crowd. Green won four Academy Awards for his film scores and a fifth for producing a short musical film, and he was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1972. He was also honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
The Drowsy Chaperone is a Canadian musical with music and lyrics by Lisa Lambert and Greg Morrison, and a book by Bob Martin and Don McKellar.
Matthew Sklar is an American composer for musical theatre, television, and film. His works have appeared on Broadway, the West End, and theatres worldwide. Sklar has written primarily with lyricist Chad Beguelin, having written music for their Broadway shows The Prom, Elf the Musical, and The Wedding Singer. The Prom and The Wedding Singer earned him nominations for the Tony Award for Best Original Score.
Ralph Joseph P. Burns was an American jazz pianist, composer, and arranger.
Robert Martin is a television and musical theatre actor and writer from Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Irwin Kostal was an American musical arranger of films and an orchestrator of Broadway musicals.
Ben Franklin in Paris is a musical with a book and lyrics by Sidney Michaels, and music by Mark Sandrich, Jr. with two songs contributed by Jerry Herman.
William David "Bill" Brohn was an American arranger and orchestrator, best known for his scores of musicals such as Miss Saigon, Ragtime and Wicked. He won the Tony Award for Best Orchestrations for Ragtime and won the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Orchestrations three times.
Simon Hale is a British composer, arranger, and keyboardist.
Gregg Barnes is an American costume designer for stage and film. Barnes is a three-time winner of the Tony Award for Best Costume Design in a Musical for his work on the Broadway productions of The Drowsy Chaperone (2006), Follies (2011), and Some Like It Hot (2022).
Alex Lacamoire is a Cuban-American composer, arranger, conductor, musical director, music copyist, and orchestrator who has worked on many shows both on and off-Broadway. He is the recipient of multiple Tony and Grammy Awards for his work on shows such as In the Heights (2008), Hamilton (2016), and Dear Evan Hansen (2017). Lacamoire was awarded the Kennedy Center Honor in 2018.
Casey Nicholaw is an American theatre director, choreographer, and performer. He has been nominated for several Tony Awards for his work directing and choreographing The Drowsy Chaperone (2006), The Book of Mormon (2011), Aladdin (2014), Something Rotten! (2015), Mean Girls (2018), The Prom (2019), and Some Like It Hot (2023) and for choreographing Monty Python's Spamalot (2005), winning for his co-direction of The Book of Mormon with Trey Parker and his choreography of Some Like It Hot. He also was nominated for the Drama Desk Awards for Outstanding Direction and Choreography for The Drowsy Chaperone (2006) and Something Rotten! (2015) and for Outstanding Choreography for Spamalot (2005).
Michael Starobin is an orchestrator, conductor, composer, arranger, and musical director, primarily for the stage, film and television. He won Tony Awards for the orchestrations of Assassins (2004) and Next to Normal.
Larry Grossman is an American composer for theatre, television, film, concerts, and cabaret.
Donald Pippin was a Tony and Emmy Award-winning American theatre musical director and orchestral conductor.
Larry Hochman is an American orchestrator and composer. He has won four Emmy Awards for his original music on the TV series Wonder Pets! and a Tony Award for his orchestrations for The Book of Mormon.
Stephen Oremus is an American musician who has worked on Broadway theatre productions as musical director and as orchestrator. His credits include arranger and orchestrator for the music for Avenue Q, musical director and arranger for Wicked, arranger and orchestrator for All Shook Up, and musical director for 9 to 5. His orchestrations for The Book of Mormon won him a Tony Award in 2011, for Best Orchestrations. Oremus also won the Tony Award for Best Orchestrations for Kinky Boots.
Daniel Troob is an American arranger and orchestrator best known for his contributions to the Disney blockbusters of the 1990s & 2000s. He won Drama Desk awards for Big River (1985) and Rodgers & Hammersteins' "Cinderella" (2013).
Joseph Church is an American music director, composer, pianist, arranger, orchestrator, and author. He is best known for his music direction of the musicals The Who's Tommy and The Lion King on Broadway.
