Thomas Z. Shepard
Encyclopedia
Thomas Z. Shepard is a prolific record producer who is best known for his recordings of Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...

 musicals, including the works of Stephen Sondheim
Stephen Sondheim
Stephen Joshua Sondheim is an American composer and lyricist for stage and film. He is the winner of an Academy Award, multiple Tony Awards including the Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre, multiple Grammy Awards, a Pulitzer Prize and the Laurence Olivier Award...

. Shepard is also a composer, conductor, music arranger and pianist.

He has won twelve Grammy Awards and produced the original cast recordings of many of the Sondheim musicals, including Sweeney Todd
Sweeney Todd (musical)
Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street is a 1979 musical thriller with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and libretto by Hugh Wheeler. The musical is based on the 1973 play Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street by Christopher Bond....

, Company
Company (musical)
Company is a musical with a book by George Furth and music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. The original production was nominated for a record-setting fourteen Tony Awards and won six....

and Sunday in the Park with George
Sunday in the Park with George
Sunday in the Park with George is a 1984 musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by James Lapine. The musical was inspired by the painting "A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte" by Georges Seurat...

, among others. He also produced the original cast recordings of 1776
1776 (musical)
1776 is a musical with music and lyrics by Sherman Edwards and a book by Peter Stone. The story is based on the events surrounding the signing of the Declaration of Independence...

, La Cage aux Folles and 42nd Street
42nd Street (musical)
42nd Street is a musical with a book by Michael Stewart and Mark Bramble, lyrics by Al Dubin, and music by Harry Warren. The 1980 Broadway production, directed by an ailing Gower Champion and orchestrated by Philip J. Lang, won the Tony Award for Best Musical and became a long-running hit...

, among over a hundred others. He has produced hundreds of classical music
Classical music
Classical music is the art music produced in, or rooted in, the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 11th century to present times...

 and popular music
Popular music
Popular music belongs to any of a number of musical genres "having wide appeal" and is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. It stands in contrast to both art music and traditional music, which are typically disseminated academically or orally to smaller, local...

 recordings.

Biography

Shepard attended The Juilliard School's preparatory division, training in piano and composition, leaving after his third year, in 1949. He then attended Oberlin College
Oberlin College
Oberlin College is a private liberal arts college in Oberlin, Ohio, noteworthy for having been the first American institution of higher learning to regularly admit female and black students. Connected to the college is the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, the oldest continuously operating...

, again studying piano and, privately, composition, receiving his B.A., Music, in 1958. He then continued his studies in 1959 at the Yale
YALE
RapidMiner, formerly YALE , is an environment for machine learning, data mining, text mining, predictive analytics, and business analytics. It is used for research, education, training, rapid prototyping, application development, and industrial applications...

 Graduate School of Music.

Beginning in 1960, Shepard worked for fourteen years for Columbia Records
Columbia Records
Columbia Records is an American record label, owned by Japan's Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group with Aware Records. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company — successor to the Volta Graphophone Company...

, eventually becoming co-director of CBS Masterworks. He joined RCA Records
RCA Records
RCA Records is one of the flagship labels of Sony Music Entertainment. The RCA initials stand for Radio Corporation of America , which was the parent corporation from 1929 to 1985 and a partner from 1985 to 1986.RCA's Canadian unit is Sony's oldest label...

 in 1974, where he was Division Vice President of RCA Red Seal, responsible for recording, signing and marketing of the label, until 1986. He was then Vice President: Classical and Theatrical until 1989 for MCA Records
MCA Records
MCA Records was an American-based record company owned by MCA Inc., which later gave way to the larger MCA Music Entertainment Group , of which MCA Records was still part. MCA Records was absorbed by Geffen Records in 2003...

 in New York, where he created their classical and theatrical record line. Shepard then became an independent producer, wrote, narrated and produced The WQXR/MCA Classics Listener's Guide (1988; music appreciation recordings) and has lectured on musical theatre and classical music.

Shepard has produced numerous classical and Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...

 cast albums, winning 12 Grammy Awards, including four with songs by Stephen Sondheim
Stephen Sondheim
Stephen Joshua Sondheim is an American composer and lyricist for stage and film. He is the winner of an Academy Award, multiple Tony Awards including the Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre, multiple Grammy Awards, a Pulitzer Prize and the Laurence Olivier Award...

. In 1984, he received the NARAS Governors' Award for Lifetime Achievement, and in 1986, he won a Drama Desk Special Award
Drama Desk Special Award
The Drama Desk Special Award is presented by the Drama Desk, a committee comprising New York City theatre critics, writers, and editors. It is a non-competitive award that honors an individual or an organization that has made a significant contribution to Broadway, off-Broadway, off-off-Broadway,...

 "for preserving musical theater heritage on record." Shepard received two Emmy Award
Emmy Award
An Emmy Award, often referred to simply as the Emmy, is a television production award, similar in nature to the Peabody Awards but more focused on entertainment, and is considered the television equivalent to the Academy Awards and the Grammy Awards .A majority of Emmys are presented in various...

 nominations for songs he composed for the PBS television show Between the Lions
Between the Lions
Between the Lions is a PBS Kids' puppet show designed to promote reading. The show is a co-production between WGBH in Boston and Sirius Thinking, Ltd., in New York City, in association with Mississippi Public Broadcasting, in Mississippi. The show has won seven Daytime Emmy awards between 2001 and...

(2007). He has also produced live concert events, most recently My Fair Lady
My Fair Lady
My Fair Lady is a musical based upon George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion and with book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe...

in 2007, and Camelot
Camelot (musical)
Camelot is a musical by Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe . It is based on the King Arthur legend as adapted from the T. H. White tetralogy novel The Once and Future King....

in 2008, with the New York Philharmonic
New York Philharmonic
The New York Philharmonic is a symphony orchestra based in New York City in the United States. It is one of the American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five"...

, broadcast on PBS as part of the Live from Lincoln Center
Live from Lincoln Center
Live From Lincoln Center is an ongoing series of musical performances produced by Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in conjunction with Thirteen/WNET in New York City....

series. Shepard has arranged music
Arrangement
The American Federation of Musicians defines arranging as "the art of preparing and adapting an already written composition for presentation in other than its original form. An arrangement may include reharmonization, paraphrasing, and/or development of a composition, so that it fully represents...

 and conducted for Anna Moffo
Anna Moffo
Anna Moffo was an Italian-American opera singer and one of the leading lyric-coloratura sopranos of her generation...

, Richard Kiley, the Norman Luboff Choir and Richard Tucker
Richard Tucker
Richard Tucker was an American operatic tenor.-Early life:Tucker was born Rivn Ticker in Brooklyn, New York, into a family of Romanian immigrants from Bessarabia. His father, Shmul Ticker, and mother Fanya-Tsipa Ticker had already adopted the surname "Tucker" by the time their son entered first...

, among others. He performed as a pianist at various concert venues, and his recording of classical piano pieces and improvisations, "Love on a Stormy Weekend", was released by Planet Earth Recording Co. in 1998.

Shepard is the composer of several musicals and five operas. The operas are The Last of the Just, with a libretto by Gerald Walker, based on the novel by Andre Schwarz-Bart
Andre Schwarz-Bart
André Schwarz-Bart was a French novelist of Polish-Jewish origins....

 (1980); That Pig of a Molette (1988) and A Question of Faith (1990), both with Sheldon Harnick
Sheldon Harnick
Sheldon Harnick is an American lyricist best known for his collaborations with composer Jerry Bock on hit musicals such as Fiddler on the Roof....

, which were presented as a double-bill under the title Love in Two Countries at St. Peter's Church Theatre
York Theatre
The York Theatre is an Off-Broadway theatre at 619 Lexington Avenue at the corner of 54th Street in the East Midtown section of Manhattan, New York City. It is dedicated to the production of new musicals and concert productions of forgotten musicals from the past. Each season consists of three or...

, in New York City, by Musical Theater Works in 1991; and a score for the lost music of Thespis
Thespis (opera)
Thespis, or The Gods Grown Old, is an operatic extravaganza that was the first collaboration between dramatist W. S. Gilbert and composer Arthur Sullivan. No musical score of Thespis was ever published, and most of the music has been lost...

, which was first produced in concert in June 2008 by the Blue Hill Troupe in New York City. In 1971, he composed the motion picture score for Such Good Friends
Such Good Friends
Such Good Friends is a 1971 American comedy-drama film directed by Otto Preminger. The screenplay by Esther Dale is based on the novel of the same title by Lois Gould.-Plot:...

, directed by Otto Preminger
Otto Preminger
Otto Ludwig Preminger was an Austro–Hungarian-American theatre and film director.After moving from the theatre to Hollywood, he directed over 35 feature films in a five-decade career. He rose to prominence for stylish film noir mysteries such as Laura and Fallen Angel...

, and in 1974, he wrote a children's cantata
Cantata
A cantata is a vocal composition with an instrumental accompaniment, typically in several movements, often involving a choir....

, In the Night Kitchen, with Maurice Sendak
Maurice Sendak
Maurice Bernard Sendak is an American writer and illustrator of children's literature. He is best known for his book Where the Wild Things Are, published in 1963.-Early life:...

. He also 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
Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States, located at 881 Seventh Avenue, occupying the east stretch of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street and West 57th Street, two blocks south of Central Park....

 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
Between the Lions
Between the Lions is a PBS Kids' puppet show designed to promote reading. The show is a co-production between WGBH in Boston and Sirius Thinking, Ltd., in New York City, in association with Mississippi Public Broadcasting, in Mississippi. The show has won seven Daytime Emmy awards between 2001 and...

(2007).

Selected list of recordings produced

Shepard has produced numerous musical theatre
Musical theatre
Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...

, classical and opera albums, including the following. (G) indicates a Grammy Award winner.

  • Show Boat
    Show Boat
    Show Boat is a musical in two acts with music by Jerome Kern and book and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II. It was originally produced in New York in 1927 and in London in 1928, and was based on the 1926 novel of the same name by Edna Ferber. The plot chronicles the lives of those living and working...

     (1962, studio with John Raitt
    John Raitt
    John Emmett Raitt was an American actor and singer best known for his performances in musical theater.-Early years:...

     and Barbara Cook
    Barbara Cook
    Barbara Cook is an American singer and actress who first came to prominence in the 1950s after starring in the original Broadway musicals Candide and The Music Man among others, winning a Tony Award for the latter...

    )
  • The King and I
    The King and I
    The King and I is a stage musical, the fifth by the team of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II. The work is based on the 1944 novel Anna and the King of Siam by Margaret Landon and derives from the memoirs of Anna Leonowens, who became governess to the children of King Mongkut of Siam in...

     (1964, studio with Theodore Bikel
    Theodore Bikel
    Theodore Meir Bikel is a character actor, folk singer and musician. He made his film debut in The African Queen and was nominated for an Academy award for his supporting role as Sheriff Max Muller in The Defiant Ones ....

     and Barbara Cook)
  • Bajour
    Bajour (musical)
    Bajour is a musical with a book by Ernest Kinoy and music and lyrics by Walter Marks. The musical is based on the Joseph Mitchell short stories The Gypsy Women and The King of the Gypsies published in The New Yorker...

     (1964)
  • Wozzeck
    Wozzeck
    Wozzeck is the first opera by the Austrian composer Alban Berg. It was composed between 1914 and 1922 and first performed in 1925. The opera is based on the drama Woyzeck left incomplete by the German playwright Georg Büchner at his death. Berg attended the first production in Vienna of Büchner's...

    , (G) 1967 - Best Classical Album
    Grammy Award for Best Classical Album
    The Grammy Award for Best Classical Album was awarded from 1962 to 2011. The award had several minor name changes:*From 1962 to 1963, 1965 to 1972 and 1974 to 1976 the award was known as Album of the Year - Classical...

     and (G) 1967- Best Opera Recording
  • George M!
    George M!
    George M! is a Broadway musical based on the life of George M. Cohan, the biggest Broadway star of his day who was known as "The Man Who Owned Broadway." The book for the musical was written by Michael Stewart, John Pascal, and Francine Pascal. Music and lyrics were, of course, by George M...

     (1968)
  • Zorba (1968)
  • 1776
    1776 (musical)
    1776 is a musical with music and lyrics by Sherman Edwards and a book by Peter Stone. The story is based on the events surrounding the signing of the Declaration of Independence...

     (1969)
  • Dames at Sea
    Dames at Sea
    Dames at Sea is a musical with book and lyrics by George Haimsohn and Robin Miller and music by Jim Wise.The musical is a parody of large, flashy 1930s Busby Berkeley-style movie musicals in which an understudy steps into a role on Broadway and becomes a star...

     (1969)
  • Dear World
    Dear World
    Dear World is a Broadway musical with a book by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee and music and lyrics by Jerry Herman. With its opening, Herman became the only composer-lyricist in history to have three productions running simultaneously on Broadway...

     (1969)
  • Company
    Company (musical)
    Company is a musical with a book by George Furth and music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. The original production was nominated for a record-setting fourteen Tony Awards and won six....

    , (G) 1970 - Best Musical Show Album
  • The Sesame Street Book & Record, (G) 1970 - Best Recording for Children (also RIAA Gold Record; the first Sesame Street
    Sesame Street
    Sesame Street has undergone significant changes in its history. According to writer Michael Davis, by the mid-1970s the show had become "an American institution". The cast and crew expanded during this time, including the hiring of women in the crew and additional minorities in the cast. The...

    recording)
  • Scrooge (soundtrack, conducted by Ian Fraser
    Ian Fraser
    Ian Fraser may refer to:* Ian Fraser , New Zealand television interviewer and executive* Ian Fraser , Australian naturalist...

    ) (1970)
  • Company
    Company (musical)
    Company is a musical with a book by George Furth and music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. The original production was nominated for a record-setting fourteen Tony Awards and won six....

     (1970)
  • The Rothschilds (1970)
  • Two by Two
    Two by Two (musical)
    Two By Two is a Broadway musical with a book by Peter Stone, lyrics by Martin Charnin, and music by Richard Rodgers.Based on Clifford Odets's play The Flowering Peach, it tells the story of Noah's preparations for the Great Flood and its aftermath....

     (1970)


  • 70, Girls, 70
    70, Girls, 70
    70, Girls, 70 is a musical with a book by Fred Ebb and Norman L. Martin adapted by Joe Masteroff, lyrics by Ebb, and music by John Kander.The musical is based on the 1958 play Breath of Spring by Peter Coke...

     (1971)
  • No, No, Nanette
    No, No, Nanette
    No, No, Nanette is a musical comedy with lyrics by Irving Caesar and Otto Harbach, music by Vincent Youmans, and a book by Otto Harbach and Frank Mandel, based on Mandel's 1919 Broadway play My Lady Friends...

     (1971)
  • Bartók
    Béla Bartók
    Béla Viktor János Bartók was a Hungarian composer and pianist. He is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century and is regarded, along with Liszt, as Hungary's greatest composer...

    : Concerto for Orchestra
    Concerto for Orchestra (Bartók)
    Concerto for Orchestra, Sz. 116, BB 123, is a five-movement musical work for orchestra composed by Béla Bartók in 1943. It is one of his best-known, most popular and most accessible works. The score is inscribed "15 August – 8 October 1943", and it premiered on December 1, 1944 in Boston Symphony...

    , (G) 1973 - Best Classical Album
    Grammy Award for Best Classical Album
    The Grammy Award for Best Classical Album was awarded from 1962 to 2011. The award had several minor name changes:*From 1962 to 1963, 1965 to 1972 and 1974 to 1976 the award was known as Album of the Year - Classical...

     (Album of the Year; Best Engineering; Best Orchestra Recording)
  • Irene
    Irene (musical)
    Irene is a musical with a book by James Montgomery, lyrics by Joseph McCarthy, and music by Harry Tierney.Based on Montgomery's play Irene O'Dare, it is set in New York City's Upper West Side and focuses on immigrant shop assistant Irene O'Dare, who is introduced to Long Island's high society when...

     (1973)
  • Raisin
    Raisin (musical)
    Raisin is a musical theatre adaptation of the Lorraine Hansberry play A Raisin in the Sun, with songs by Judd Woldin and Robert Brittan, and a book by Robert Nemiroff and Charlotte Zaltzberg....

     (1973) (G) - Best Cast Show Album
  • Candide
    Candide (operetta)
    Candide is an operetta with music composed by Leonard Bernstein, based on the novella of the same name by Voltaire. The operetta was first performed in 1956 with a libretto by Lillian Hellman; but since 1974 it has been generally performed with a book by Hugh Wheeler which is more faithful to...

     (1974, revival)
  • Goodtime Charley
    Goodtime Charley
    Goodtime Charley is a musical with a book by Sidney Michaels, music by Larry Grossman, and lyrics by Hal Hackady.A humorous take on actual historical events, it focuses on the Dauphin of France, who evolves from a hedonistic young man enamored of women in general into a regal king while Joan...

     (1975)
  • A Little Night Music
    A Little Night Music
    A Little Night Music is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by Hugh Wheeler. Inspired by the Ingmar Bergman film Smiles of a Summer Night, it involves the romantic lives of several couples. Its title is a literal English translation of the German name for Mozart's Serenade...

     (1975, London)
  • Pacific Overtures
    Pacific Overtures
    Pacific Overtures is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, a libretto by John Weidman, and additional material by Hugh Wheeler. The musical is set in 1853 Japan and follows the difficult Westernization of Japan, through the lives of two friends caught in the change...

     (1976)
  • Porgy and Bess
    Porgy and Bess
    Porgy and Bess is an opera, first performed in 1935, with music by George Gershwin, libretto by DuBose Heyward, and lyrics by Ira Gershwin and DuBose Heyward. It was based on DuBose Heyward's novel Porgy and subsequent play of the same title, which he co-wrote with his wife Dorothy Heyward...

    , (G) 1977 - Best Opera Recording
  • The King and I
    The King and I
    The King and I is a stage musical, the fifth by the team of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II. The work is based on the 1944 novel Anna and the King of Siam by Margaret Landon and derives from the memoirs of Anna Leonowens, who became governess to the children of King Mongkut of Siam in...

     (1977, revival)
  • Ain't Misbehavin', (G) 1978 - Best Cast Show Album
  • Sweeney Todd
    Sweeney Todd (musical)
    Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street is a 1979 musical thriller with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and libretto by Hugh Wheeler. The musical is based on the 1973 play Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street by Christopher Bond....

    , (G) 1979 - Best Cast Show Album
  • 42nd Street
    42nd Street (musical)
    42nd Street is a musical with a book by Michael Stewart and Mark Bramble, lyrics by Al Dubin, and music by Harry Warren. The 1980 Broadway production, directed by an ailing Gower Champion and orchestrated by Philip J. Lang, won the Tony Award for Best Musical and became a long-running hit...

     (1980)
  • Merrily We Roll Along
    Merrily We Roll Along
    Merrily We Roll Along is a play by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart. It concerns a man who has lost the idealistic values of his youth. Its innovative structure presents the story in reverse order, with the character regressing from a mournful adult to a young man whose future is filled with...

     (1981)
  • Mahler
    Gustav Mahler
    Gustav Mahler was a late-Romantic Austrian composer and one of the leading conductors of his generation. He was born in the village of Kalischt, Bohemia, in what was then Austria-Hungary, now Kaliště in the Czech Republic...

    : Sym. No. 7 In E Min., (G)1982 - Best Orchestral Performance
  • A Stephen Sondheim
    Stephen Sondheim
    Stephen Joshua Sondheim is an American composer and lyricist for stage and film. He is the winner of an Academy Award, multiple Tony Awards including the Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre, multiple Grammy Awards, a Pulitzer Prize and the Laurence Olivier Award...

     Evening (1983, concert)
  • La Cage Aux Folles (1983)
  • Sunday in the Park with George
    Sunday in the Park with George
    Sunday in the Park with George is a 1984 musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by James Lapine. The musical was inspired by the painting "A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte" by Georges Seurat...

    , (G) 1984 - Best Cast Show Album


  • Me and My Girl
    Me and My Girl
    Me and My Girl is a musical with book and lyrics by Douglas Furber and L. Arthur Rose and music by Noel Gay. It takes place in the late 1930s in Hampshire, Mayfair, and Lambeth....

     (1986, revival)
  • Follies in Concert, (G) 1986 - Best Musical Cast Show Album
  • Song and Dance
    Song and Dance
    Song and Dance is a musical comprising two acts, one told entirely in "Song" and one entirely in "Dance", tied together by a love story.The first part is Tell Me On A Sunday, with lyrics by Don Black and music by Andrew Lloyd Webber, about a young British woman's romantic misadventures in New York...

     (1986)
  • Carousel
    Carousel (musical)
    Carousel is the second stage musical by the team of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II . The work premiered in 1945 and was adapted from Ferenc Molnár's 1909 play Liliom, transplanting its Budapest setting to the Maine coastline...

     (1987, studio with The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra)
  • Romance/Romance
    Romance/Romance
    Romance/Romance is a musical with a book and lyrics by Barry Harman and music by Keith Herrmann.The show is composed of two acts linked only by the common theme of love and one song performed in both acts...

     (1988)
  • The Secret Garden
    The Secret Garden (musical)
    The Secret Garden is a musical based on the 1911 novel of the same name by Frances Hodgson Burnett. The musical's book and lyrics are by Marsha Norman, with music by Lucy Simon...

     (1991)
  • Jelly's Last Jam
    Jelly's Last Jam
    Jelly's Last Jam is a musical with a book by George C. Wolfe, lyrics by Susan Birkenhead, and music by Jelly Roll Morton and Luther Henderson...

     (1992)
  • Crazy for You
    Crazy for You
    Crazy for You is a musical with a book by Ken Ludwig, lyrics by Ira Gershwin, and music by George Gershwin. Billed as "The New Gershwin Musical Comedy", it is largely based on the songwriting team’s 1930 musical, Girl Crazy, but interpolates songs from several other productions as well...

     (1992)
  • Annie Warbucks
    Annie Warbucks
    Annie Warbucks is a musical with a book by Thomas Meehan, music by Charles Strouse, and lyrics by Martin Charnin. A sequel to the 1977 Tony Award-winning hit Annie, based on Harold Gray's Little Orphan Annie comic strip, it begins immediately after Annie ended.-Plot:On Christmas morning in 1933,...

     (1993)
  • Damn Yankees
    Damn Yankees
    Damn Yankees is a musical comedy with a book by George Abbott and Douglass Wallop and music and lyrics by Richard Adler and Jerry Ross. The story is a modern retelling of the Faust legend set during the 1950s in Washington, D.C., during a time when the New York Yankees dominated Major League...

     (1994, revival)
  • Victor/Victoria
    Victor/Victoria (musical)
    Victor/Victoria is a musical with a book by Blake Edwards, music by Henry Mancini, lyrics by Leslie Bricusse and additional musical material by Frank Wildhorn...

     (1995)
  • Kiss of the Spider Woman
    Kiss of the Spider Woman (musical)
    Kiss of the Spider Woman is a musical with music by John Kander and Fred Ebb, with the book by Terrence McNally. It is based on the Manuel Puig novel El Beso de la Mujer Araña...

     (1995, with Vanessa L. Williams
    Vanessa L. Williams
    Vanessa Lynn Williams is an American pop-R&B recording artist, producer, dancer, model, actress and showgirl. In 1983, she became the first woman of African-American descent to be crowned Miss America, but a scandal generated by her having posed for nude photographs published in Penthouse magazine...

    )
  • Man of La Mancha
    Man of La Mancha
    Man of La Mancha is a musical with a book by Dale Wasserman, lyrics by Joe Darion and music by Mitch Leigh. It is adapted from Wasserman's non-musical 1959 teleplay I, Don Quixote, which was in turn inspired by Miguel de Cervantes's seventeenth century masterpiece Don Quixote...

     (1996, studio with Placido Domingo
    Plácido Domingo
    Plácido Domingo KBE , born José Plácido Domingo Embil, is a Spanish tenor and conductor known for his versatile and strong voice, possessing a ringing and dramatic tone throughout its range...

     and Mandy Patinkin
    Mandy Patinkin
    Mandel Bruce "Mandy" Patinkin is an award-winning American actor of stage and screen and a tenor vocalist. He is a noted interpreter of the musical works of Stephen Sondheim, and is best-known for his work in musical theatre, originating iconic roles such as Georges Seurat in Sunday in the Park...

    )
  • Wings (1996)
  • Swinging on a Star
    Swinging on a Star (musical)
    Swinging on a Star is a musical revue, featuring the music of Johnny Burke, with the lyrics by Burke and the music by Burke and several of his partners, such as Erroll Garner and Jimmy Van Heusen...

     (1996)
  • Chicago
    Chicago (musical)
    Chicago is a musical set in Prohibition-era Chicago. The music is by John Kander with lyrics by Fred Ebb and a book by Ebb and Bob Fosse. The story is a satire on corruption in the administration of criminal justice and the concept of the "celebrity criminal"...

     (1998, London)

Shepard's classical music recordings include albums with Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, author, music lecturer and pianist. He was among the first conductors born and educated in the United States of America to receive worldwide acclaim...

, Pierre Boulez
Pierre Boulez
Pierre Boulez is a French composer of contemporary classical music, a pianist, and a conductor.-Early years:Boulez was born in Montbrison, Loire, France. As a child he began piano lessons and demonstrated aptitude in both music and mathematics...

 and others, and his albums of popular music include, among others:
  • Harold Arlen
    Harold Arlen
    Harold Arlen was an American composer of popular music, having written over 500 songs, a number of which have become known the world over. In addition to composing the songs for The Wizard of Oz, including the classic 1938 song, "Over the Rainbow,” Arlen is a highly regarded contributor to the...

     and Barbra Streisand
    Barbra Streisand
    Barbra Joan Streisand is an American singer, actress, film producer and director. She has won two Academy Awards, eight Grammy Awards, four Emmy Awards, a Special Tony Award, an American Film Institute award, a Peabody Award, and is one of the few entertainers who have won an Oscar, Emmy, Grammy,...

     – Harold Sings Arlen (1966);
  • Leontyne Price
    Leontyne Price
    Mary Violet Leontyne Price is an American soprano. Born and raised in the Deep South, she rose to international acclaim in the 1950s and 1960s, and was one of the first African Americans to become a leading artist at the Metropolitan Opera.One critic characterized Price's voice as "vibrant",...

     – God Bless America (1982);
  • Barbara Cook
    Barbara Cook
    Barbara Cook is an American singer and actress who first came to prominence in the 1950s after starring in the original Broadway musicals Candide and The Music Man among others, winning a Tony Award for the latter...

     – The Disney Album (1988);
  • The Boston Pops – Music of the Night (1990);
  • Betty Buckley
    Betty Buckley
    Betty Lynn Buckley is an American theater, film and television actress and singer. She is a Tony Award winner and Grammy Award nominee.-Early life:...

     – An Evening at Carnegie Hall
    Carnegie Hall
    Carnegie Hall is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States, located at 881 Seventh Avenue, occupying the east stretch of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street and West 57th Street, two blocks south of Central Park....

    (1996); and
  • Julie Andrews
    Julie Andrews
    Dame Julia Elizabeth Andrews, DBE is an English film and stage actress, singer, and author. She is the recipient of Golden Globe, Emmy, Grammy, BAFTA, People's Choice Award, Theatre World Award, Screen Actors Guild and Academy Award honors...

     – Classic Julie (2001).


In addition, Shepard contributed to the early 1970s "switched-on" cycle of synthesized electronic
Moog synthesizer
Moog synthesizer may refer to any number of analog synthesizers designed by Dr. Robert Moog or manufactured by Moog Music, and is commonly used as a generic term for older-generation analog music synthesizers. The Moog company pioneered the commercial manufacture of modular voltage-controlled...

 classical albums, with Everything You Always Wanted to Hear on the Moog
Moog synthesizer
Moog synthesizer may refer to any number of analog synthesizers designed by Dr. Robert Moog or manufactured by Moog Music, and is commonly used as a generic term for older-generation analog music synthesizers. The Moog company pioneered the commercial manufacture of modular voltage-controlled...

* (*but were afraid to ask for)
, in collaboration with Andrew Kazdin (1973). In the 1990s, he also produced several albums for Sony Classical, with conductor John Williams
John Williams
John Towner Williams is an American composer, conductor, and pianist. In a career spanning almost six decades, he has composed some of the most recognizable film scores in the history of motion pictures, including the Star Wars saga, Jaws, Superman, the Indiana Jones films, E.T...

 and The Boston Pops, including The Star Wars Trilogy (Skywalker Orchestra); The Spielberg-Williams Collaboration; I Love a Parade; Kismet
Kismet (musical)
Kismet is a musical with lyrics and musical adaptation by Robert Wright and George Forrest, adapted from the music of Alexander Borodin, and a book by Charles Lederer and Luther Davis, based on Kismet, the 1911 play by Edward Knoblock...

, starring Samuel Ramey
Samuel Ramey
Samuel Edward Ramey is an American operatic bass with a long, distinguished career.During his best years, he was greatly admired for his range and versatility, having possessed a sufficiently accomplished bel canto technique to enable him to sing the music of Handel, Mozart, Rossini, yet power...

, Jerry Hadley
Jerry Hadley
Jerry Hadley was an American operatic tenor. He received three Grammy awards for his vocal performances in the recordings of Jenůfa , Susannah , and Candide...

, Dom DeLuise
Dom DeLuise
Dominick "Dom" DeLuise was an American actor, comedian, film director, television producer, chef, and author. He was the husband of actress Carol Arthur from 1965 until his death and the father of: actor, director, pianist, and writer Peter DeLuise; actor David DeLuise; and actor Michael DeLuise...

, Ruth Ann Swenson
Ruth Ann Swenson
Ruth Ann Swenson is an American soprano who is renowned for her brilliance in coloratura roles.Born in Bronxville, New York and raised in Commack, New York on Long Island, Swenson studied at the Academy of Vocal Arts in Philadelphia and briefly at Hartt College of Music in West Hartford, Connecticut...

 and Julia Migenes
Julia Migenes
Julia Migenes is an American mezzo-soprano working primarily in musical theatre repertoire. She was born on the Lower East Side of New York to a family of Greek and Irish-Puerto Rican descent...

; and The Green Album, among others.

Sources


External links

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