Interview: Joshua Rosenblum Celebrates Maury Yeston at Symphony Space

Composer/lyricist Maury Yeston – who recently celebrated his landmark 80th birthday – will join author Joshua Rosenblum and theater journalist Peter Filichia at the Leonard Nimoy Thalia at Symphony Space on Monday, June 29 at 7 pm for a special pre-release event celebrating Rosenblum’s forthcoming book, A VERY UNUSUAL WAY: Maury Yeston and His Singular Path to Broadway and Beyond (State University of New York Press). Copies of the book – which is due in stores and online on July 1 – will be available for purchase and signing.

Read a conversation with Joshua Rosenblum about the book and special release event.

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What first got you interested in writing a biography of Maury Yeston?

My first book was about Richard Maltby, Jr. and David Shire, and the publisher liked it and it sold pretty well. So I said to my editor, “Hey, now that I’ve figured out how to write a book, is there anyone else you think would make a good subject?” He said they had been interested for a while in publishing a book about Maury Yeston as part of the same series. That sounded like a great idea to me, since not only was I a big fan of Maury and his work, but I had also been a student of his back in college when he was a Yale music professor. I was inspired right away, so I called Maury, with whom I had stayed friendly over the years. He was surprised that anyone wanted to write a book about him but he came around to the idea, and then was an enthusiastic participant. We did something like fifteen interviews together and he gave me access to his well-maintained archive, which has manuscripts of literally everything he’s ever written, both famous and obscure. It was like being in a candy store.

Did you uncover anything that surprised you as you were doing the research for this book?

He wrote this amazing cello concerto when he was a senior in college. Through a fortuitous series of events, it was premiered about ten years later with Yo-Yo Ma as soloist. It’s a fascinating, challenging, spiky, dense, and exciting piece, fully in the contemporary classical tradition and completely different from the musicals he’s famous for. It would be impossible for anyone to hear this concerto and say, “This is the same composer who wrote Nine and Titanic.” Also, the orchestration is tremendously sophisticated and skillful. I would never guess that it was a student work. There’s no commercial recording, unfortunately, but there’s a live recording of the premiere performance on Maury’s website. Hearing it is a revelatory experience!

What are you looking forward to about this pre-release celebration?

I have five fantastic singers lined up who are going to perform individual Yeston songs throughout the course of the discussion of the book. Karen Akers, who created the role of Luisa in the original Broadway production of Nine, will sing “My Husband Makes Movies,” her signature song. We’ll also have performances from Shereen Ahmed, Benjamin Eakeley, Jill Paice, and Elena Shaddow. These folks are all part of the Yeston orbit (having appeared in one or more of his shows), and they are all absolutely standout performers. I literally cannot wait to hear them! We’ll also have veteran Broadway music director Fred Lassen at the piano, and he’s one of the best musicians I know. The much-beloved theater journalist Peter Filichia is going to interview me about the book, and then Maury himself will come onstage and join us toward the end. I think it’s going to be fun! Oh, and books will be on sale at a discount price of $20 (33% off list price). If you buy a copy, you can get it signed by Maury and me. 

Do you have a personal favorite song or show Yeston wrote?

There’s so much that’s so good, but I’m particularly partial to “My Husband Makes Movies,” which Karen is going to sing; “The Bells of St. Sebastian,” also from Nine; “My True Love” from the Yeston-Kopit Phantom; “Mr. Andrews’ Vision” and “Dressed in Your Pyjamas in the Grand Salon” from Titanic; “By the River” from the cycle December Songs, which Elena Shaddow is going to sing; “I Don’t Want to Rock and Roll,” which is a tribute to classical music sung to a catchy rock beat with diabolically clever rhymes; and “Strange,” which is a smoky and luscious cabaret song in the Michel Legrand tradition that Maury wrote for the French chanteuse Isabelle Georges. There are also several terrific movements from Maury’s ballet score Tom Sawyer that I absolutely love.    

Is there anything else you'd like to add?

As I mentioned, I was a student of Maury’s back when I was a Yale student. Several decades later, I now teach there myself, and the class I teach, Composing for Musical Theater, is a modern-day version of the course I took from Maury back in the day, which was called The Analysis and Composition of Song. So in some ways I feel like I’ve come full circle with him in my artistic life. This book sort of puts an official stamp on that long-term relationship I have with him.

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Learn more about the book and where to purchase it here.

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