FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                                              January 6, 2004

EVENING OF SONG TO FEATURE MUSIC OF STEPHEN SONDHEIM

            Broadway composer Stephen Sondheim will be featured in the annual “Evening of Song” presented by Northwestern Oklahoma State University at 7 p.m., Jan. 20, in the Josie Adams Cultural Center at the Woodward Arts Theatre. The program is free and the public is invited.

Sondheim has written the music and lyrics for many musicals, including Into the Woods (1987), Sweeney Todd (1979), The Frogs (1974), A Little Night Music (1973), Follies (1971), Anyone Can Whistle (1964), and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1962), as well as lyrics for West Side Story (1957), Gypsy (1959), and additional lyrics for Candide (1973).

He has composed the scores of several movies, as well as the songs for Dick Tracy (1990), for which he won an Academy Award.  Sondheim won Tony Awards for Best Score for a Musical for Passion, Into the Woods, Sweeney Todd, A Little Night Music, Follies, and Company. All of those shows won the New York Drama Critics Circle Award, as did Pacific Overtures and Sunday in the Park with George. The latter also received the 1985 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

Sondheim was born in 1930 and raised in New York City. He graduated from Williams College, winning the Hutchinson Prize for Music Composition, after which he studied theory and composition with Milton Babbitt. He is on the council of the Dramatists Guild, the national association of playwrights, composers, and lyricists, having served as its president from 1973 to 1981. In 1983, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 1990, Sondheim was appointed as the first Visiting Professor of Contemporary Theatre at Oxford University in England and in 1993 was a recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors.

Songs and ensembles from this prolific composer will be performed by 10 voice students of Aija Shrader, assistant professor of music.  Singers will be Misty Baldwin, Josh Jennings, Ryan White and Alek Shrader of Alva; Kandee Hookstra, Vici; Esther Hougham, Enumclaw, Wash.; Abby Hunter, Taloga; Kevin Kerr, Conway Springs, Kan.; Shaleen Miller, Sapulpa; Bryan Pope, Laverne; Amanda Wiles, Ponca City; and Jason Paris, 1999 Northwestern graduate. Dr. Rodney Murrow, professor of music, will accompany them on piano.

Along with the evening's musical presentations, a multi-media lecture presentation including video documentary, film footage and photos from Sondheim’s life and shows will fill out the program.  Traditional door prizes and refreshments at intermission will be offered once again. The narrator and hostess for the evening will be Shrader, who said, “This is not just another voice recital.”

            The 2004 Evening of Song follows in the footsteps of the annual celebrations of the life and compositions of composers of literature for the solo voice. In past years, Northwestern has celebrated classical song composers Franz Schubert, Ernest Chausson, Joaquín Rodrigo, and Hugo Wolf, as well as operetta and musical theater composers George Gershwin, Sir Arthur Sullivan and Richard Rodgers.

For more information, contact Shrader at (580) 327-8692.

-NW-

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