Andrew Lloyd Webber

Sound · born 22 March 1948 · Kensington, London, England, UK

Andrew Lloyd Webber, Baron Lloyd-Webber is an English composer and impresario of musical theatre. Several of his musicals have run for more than a decade both in the West End and on Broadway. He has composed 13 musicals, a song cycle, a set of variations, two film scores, and a Latin Requiem Mass. Several of his songs have been widely recorded and were hits outside of their parent musicals, notably "The Music of the Night" from The Phantom of the Opera, "I Don't Know How to Love Him" from Jesus Christ Superstar, "Don't Cry for Me, Argentina" and "You Must Love Me" from Evita, "Any Dream Will Do" from Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and "Memory" from Cats. In 2001 the New York Times referred to him as "the most commercially successful composer in history". Ranked the "fifth most powerful person in British culture" by The Telegraph in 2008, the lyricist Don Black stated "Andrew more or less single-handedly reinvented the musical."

He has received a number of awards, including a knighthood in 1992, followed by a peerage from Queen Elizabeth II for services to Music, seven Tonys, three Grammys (as well as the Grammy Legend Award), an Academy Award, fourteen Ivor Novello Awards, seven Olivier Awards, a Golden Globe, a Brit Award, the 2006 Kennedy Center Honors, and the 2008 Classic Brit Award for Outstanding Contribution to Music. He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, is an inductee into the Songwriter's Hall of Fame, and is a fellow of the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors.

Where to start: The Phantom of the Opera at the Royal Albert Hall (2011).