Thomas Z. Shepard

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Thomas Z. Shepard is a recording producer who is best known for his recordings of Broadway musicals, especially the works of Stephen Sondheim. Shepard is also an accomplished pianist, composer, arranger and conductor.

He has won twelve Grammy Awards and produced many of the original cast recordings of the Sondheim musicals, including Sweeney Todd, Company and Sunday in the Park with George, in addition to the original cast recordings of La Cage aux Folles, 42nd Street, Irene and the 1971 revival of No, No, Nanette, among many others. He has also produced numerous classical music recordings.

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[edit] Biography

Shepard attended The Juilliard School's preparatory division, training in piano and composition, and graduating in 1949. He then attended Oberlin College, again studying piano and, privately, composition, and receiving his B.A., Music, in 1958. He then studied at the Yale Graduate School of Music in 1959.

Beginning in 1960, Shepard worked for fourteen years for Columbia Records. In 1974, he joined RCA Records, becoming Division Vice President of RCA Red Seal, where he was responsible for recording, signing and marketing of the label until 1986.[1] from 1986 to 1989, he was Vice President: Classical and Theatrical for MCA Records in New York, where he created their classical and theatrical record line. Since 1989, Shepard has been an independent producer. He has also served as producer and director of CBS Masterworks.[2] In addition to lecturing on musical theatre and classical music, he also wrote, narrated and produced The WQXR/MCA Classics Listener's Guide (1988; music appreciation recordings).

Shepard has produced numerous classical and Broadway cast albums, winning 12 Grammy Awards. In 1986, Shepard won a Drama Desk Award Special Award "for preserving musical theater heritage on record."[3] In 1984, he received the NARAS Governors' Award for Lifetime Achievement. Shepard also received two Emmy Award nominations for songs he composed in the PBS television show Between the Lions (2007). He is also a producer of live concert events, most recently My Fair Lady in 2007, and Camelot in 2008, with the New York Philharmonic, broadcast on PBS as part of the Live from Lincoln Center series.[4]

He is the composer of two musicals and five operas. The musicals are The Snow Queen (1963) and Blaming it on You (1970), both with Charles Burr. The operas are The Last of the Just, with a libretto by Gerald Walker, based on the novel by Andre Schwarz-Bart (1980), That Pig of a Molette, with Sheldon Harnick (1988), A Question of Faith (1991), with Harnick, and a score for the lost music of Thespis, the latter of which will premiere in June 2008.[5] In 1971, he also composed the motion picture score for Paramount's Such Good Friends, and in 1974, he wrote a children's cantata, In the Night Kitchen, with Maurice Sendak. Recently, he composed the piano folio Folk a la Classique for Carl Fischer (2003; original compositions for children) and was the composer and lyricist for children's educational material for the Carnegie Hall Explorers Division, The Children’s Symphony (2004, intended to teach the instruments of the orchestra to second and third grade schoolchildren) and for the PBS television show Between the Lions (2007).[6]

[edit] Selected list of recordings produced

Shepard has produced numerous albums, including the following. (G) indicates a Grammy Award winner.


Shepard also produced classical recordings by Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic, among others, and albums of popular music by:

In addition, Shepard contributed to the early '70s "switched-on" cycle of synthesized electronic classical albums, with Everything You Ever Wanted To Hear On The Moog* (*but were afraid to ask for) (in collaboration with Andrew Kazdin). In the 1990s, he also produced several albums for Sony Classical, with conductor John Williams and The Boston Pops, including The Star Wars Trilogy (Skywalker Orchestra); The Spielberg-Williams Collaboration; I Love a Parade; Kismet, starring Samuel Ramey, Jerry Hadley, Dom DeLuise, and Julia Migenes; and The Green Album, among others.

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ a b Shepard biography at the SondheimGuide
  2. ^ Bio of Shepard at BroadwayWorld.com
  3. ^ Shepard's Drama Desk Award
  4. ^ Stempleski, Susan. Review of Camelot (classicalsource.com)
  5. ^ "Long-Lost Gilbert & Sullivan Opera Gets New Score by Thomas Z. Shepard" (PrimeNewsWire.com)
  6. ^ Information about Shepard's contributions to Between the Lions

[edit] Sources

[edit] External links