Conductor, pianist and composer Marvin Hamlisch talks about his upcoming performances with the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra.
By: Daniel Shearer
In Washington, D.C., it was the "Waltz of the Bunions." In Philadelphia, one of the suggestions seemed more nebulous: "The Life I Led." But from an audience member in Savannah, Ga., came a song title with plenty of room for creative interpretation "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil."
As a pops conductor, Marvin Hamlisch gets plenty of mileage from his "Rent-a-Composer" routine. From the piano bench, he asks audience members for ideas, then produces spur-of-the-moment ditties, often with lyrics.
"I make up a song on the spot," says Mr. Hamlisch, who has conducted symphonic ensembles across North America since the early ’80s, including the Philadelphia Orchestra and the famed Boston Pops.
Since 1996, Mr. Hamlisch has been Principal Pops Conductor of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, occupying a similar post since 2000 with the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, D.C. His musical compositions have won just about every major award you could name: three Oscars, four Grammies, four Emmys, a Tony and three Golden Globe awards.
"The kind of concert I do is very family-oriented," Mr. Hamlisch says. "Kids enjoy it, and it’s something parents enjoy because they know the music. I do my normal show, which is some of my music, some of Cole Porter’s, Jerome Kern, some Richard Rodgers."
On April 11 and 12, Mr. Hamlisch’s performances with the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra will include an appearance from vocalist J. Mark McVey, perhaps best known for his role as Jean Valjean in Les Misèrables on Broadway. Mr. Hamlisch will conduct Mr. McVey and the symphony at Patriots Theater at the War Memorial in Trenton, and at New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark April 12. Mr. Hamlisch also will perform at the State Theatre in New Brunswick May 3.
"I love seeing and hearing a live audience," Mr. Hamlisch says. "I think that’s why I like to concertize as much as I do, because you get different responses."
Well-known for his witty audience rapport, Mr. Hamlisch has even been known to greet latecomers from the podium, albeit in a good-natured fashion.
"We do a lot of funny stuff," he says.
A native New Yorker, Mr. Hamlisch has maintained a lengthy love affair with Broadway, Gypsy in particular, which he says is his favorite show of all time.
"It’s got the best score for Broadway," he says, "and then of course it has a wonderful book. It’s a great, great show. I think Ethel Merman was absolutely brilliant in it. Jule Styne wrote the music, and Steve Sondheim wrote the lyrics."
A few years after Gypsy opened on Broadway, Mr. Hamlisch found himself in the enviable position of working for Mr. Styne as assistant vocal arranger on another musical, Funny Girl, which firmly established Barbra Streisand as a star of the Great White Way in 1964.
"That was very exciting," Mr. Hamlisch says. "That’s how I first met Barbra Streisand."
Ten years later, after producing scores for the Woody Allen films Take the Money and Run and Bananas, Mr. Hamlisch delivered the film score that would lead to Streisand’s first million-selling single, as well as an Oscar for the music. Oddly enough, considering it would later become one of Ms. Streisand’s signature songs, Mr. Hamlisch says she expressed reluctance to use his title song, composed for the 1973 romantic drama The Way We Were.
"(Streisand) liked it a lot in the beginning," Mr. Hamlisch says, "then she got kind of tired of it because it was a long time from the time we wrote it to the time we were gonna record it, so she asked to write a second song, which we did.
"But then the director (Sydney Pollack) was very smart, and he actually recorded both songs and put them up against the picture. It became a no contest because we all thought the first song worked better."
Mr. Hamlisch later served as musical director and arranger for Ms. Streisand’s Emmy Award-winning concert tour and television special, Barbra Streisand: The Concert, a role he reprised for her Millennium concerts. Although some observers might have been surprised, Mr. Hamlisch says the announcement of Streisand’s stage retirement did not come as a shock to him.
"I’m not surprised by it, because it’s not something that she loves," Mr. Hamlisch says. "If you don’t love doing it, there’s no reason to do it, particularly if you’re Barbra Streisand. But she’s still doing her albums, and I’m sure she’s going to be making movies and stuff. She’s gonna be busy for a long time."
Riding high on film score success from The Way We Were and The Sting, in which his arrangements of music by Scott Joplin helped to win a second Academy Award, Mr. Hamlisch scored one of the biggest hits of his career and one of the longest-running Broadway smashes of all time with A Chorus Line, his first attempt at composing for a Broadway musical.
"(‘A Chorus Line’) is the antithesis of the English show," Mr. Hamlisch says, "which is the big, big, get me another big set, show. This is a very miniscule set, no stars. And what I like about it is it stays unique."
Director-choreographer Michael Bennett struck gold when he rented a studio and held two all-night recording sessions with actual chorus-line dancers, listening to their backgrounds, hopes and dreams. Mr. Bennett formed the show in rehearsal, long before any of the actual dialogue had been written. Although uncredited, Neil Simon punched up the script with a handful of one-liners. Meanwhile, Mr. Hamlisch went to work on a score with one ensemble number "One," the finale and a series of songs that told stories from the dancers’ point of view, including "What I Did for Love."
A Chorus Line opened April 15, 1975, at the Public Theater, ran 101 performances, then moved to the Shubert Theatre, where it remained for 15 years. The show closed April 28, 1990, after 6,137 performances.
"I knew it was different, I knew it was unique," Mr. Hamlisch says, "but I had no idea that it was gonna be that kind of hit. Interestingly enough, they’re now talking about bringing it back to Broadway."
Mr. Hamlisch went on to write music for a number of Broadway productions, among them, They’re Playing Our Song, Smile and recently, the jazzy stage adaptation of the film Sweet Smell of Success, which had a brief run in 2002 with John Lithgow performing as gossip columnist J.J. Hunsacker. Still, Mr. Hamlisch has been in the business long enough to know not every show is destined for hit status.
"I have no idea what went wrong," Mr. Hamlisch says, referring to the show’s lackluster response from critics. "It’s an impossible thing to say, because you don’t bring in a show that you think is gonna be a bomb. I have no idea, so I just go on to the next one."
Despite its short stay on Broadway, Sweet Smell of Success received Tony Award nominations for Best Original Score, Best Musical and Best Orchestrations, while Lithgow took home a Tony for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in Musical.
Looking at current Broadway offerings, Mr. Hamlisch says today’s shows "don’t stack up" against productions from the ’30s and ’40s the era when composers were king, when Rodgers and Hammerstein, Jerome Kern and Irving Berlin could turn a show into a hit just by attaching their name to it.
"This could all change, but I think right now, Broadway is the ultimate escapist fare," he says. "People want to laugh. I don’t think people need too much emotional shock. We’re living in rough times. So Broadway, in its purpose, is different than it was before, and I think this may or may not change.
"Broadway tends to change a lot. It doesn’t stay within one pattern, so just when you think you’ve figured it out, something else comes along, so you never know."
Marvin Hamlisch will conduct the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra at Patriots Theater at the War Memorial, West Lafayette and Barrack streets, Trenton, April 11, 8 p.m.; and at New Jersey Performing Arts Center, 1 Center St. Newark, April 12, 8 p.m. Tickets cost $14-$58. For information, call (800) 255-3476. On the Web: www.njsymphony.org
Mr. Hamlisch also will perform at the State Theatre, 15 Livingston Ave., New Brunswick, May 3, 8 p.m. Tickets $25-$50. For information, call (877) 782-8311. On the Web: www.statetheatrenj.org