John Kander

Practical theatre work came first for John Kander — rehearsal pianist, dance arranger, conductor. Born in Kansas City, Missouri, he studied at Oberlin College and took a master's degree at Columbia; in the early 1960s he met the lyricist Fred Ebb, and the partnership lasted four decades. He wrote Cabaret and Chicago, the latter made with Bob Fosse. Zorba, The Happy Time, Woman of the Year, The Rink, Kiss of the Spider Woman, Curtains, The Scottsboro Boys and The Visit followed, along with the title song of New York, New York. He has gone on writing since Ebb's death — The Landing, Kid Victory, The Beast in the Jungle — and in 2023 a stage New York, New York reached Broadway. Born in 1927, he took his Oberlin degree in 1951 and his Columbia master's in 1954, studying composition there with Jack Beeson and Otto Luening under the eye of Douglas Moore. The dance music he wrote for Gypsy in 1959 came at Jerome Robbins's suggestion, and the partnership with Ebb, formed in 1962, reached Broadway in 1965 with Flora the Red Menace, the show in which Liza Minnelli made her Broadway debut. Much of what followed was written for Minnelli and for Chita Rivera, and the film of Chicago took the Academy Award for best picture in 2003 for the 2002 film.