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The first book-length study of the career and works of celebrated Broadway composer and lyricist Maury Yeston, creator of the Tony Award–winning musicals Nine, Titanic, and Grand Hotel.
Maury Yeston, the celebrated composer and lyricist of the Tony Award–winning musicals Nine, Titanic, and Grand Hotel, has not, until now, been the subject of a full-length study of his career and work. Now, through this comprehensive text, readers can appreciate the full scope of Yeston's output and his place in musical theater history. A Very Unusual Way is a career chronicle combined with close examinations of some of Yeston's most noteworthy compositions, including songs from his famous musicals as well as his lesser-known works. Joshua Rosenblum gives behind-the-scenes accounts of Yeston's Broadway shows and appraises his songs with revelatory analyses that can be appreciated by musicians and lay readers alike. In addition to having full access to the composer's archive, the author conducted over a dozen interviews with Yeston, an unusually articulate, charming, and enlightening subject who offers priceless insights into his work and his process. The book also highlights the numerous well-known artistic figures and collaborators who have featured prominently in Yeston's life, including Stephen Sondheim, Placido Domingo, Federico Fellini, Jane Krakowski, Alan Jay Lerner, Yo-Yo Ma, Alan Menken, Mike Nichols, Barbra Streisand, Tommy Tune, and Jonathan Tunick. As a bonus, "Advice to Young Composers," Yeston's legendary discourse, is included in full as an appendix.
"Josh Rosenblum has embarked on an exceptional intellectual project—taking some of the luminaries of American musical theater whose names may not be instantly familiar to those outside it, in the way that Loesser or Sondheim may be, and still treating them with the seriousness and detailed attentiveness they deserve. Having explored the shining work of Shire & Maltby, he now turns to the equally gifted and accomplished Maury Yeston, author of Nine and Titanic and many memorable song cycles, and gives us a scholarly study of his work that is revelatory even for those of us who thought we knew it well. An essential book for students of the great American art form and one of its masters." — Adam Gopnik, lyricist and critic-at-large, The New Yorker
"I've known Maury Yeston for years, but feel as if I've just met him. Joshua Rosenblum's extraordinary biography captures the relentless energy, brilliance, and delight of one of our greatest musical theater composers." — Lynn Ahrens, Tony Award-Winning Lyricist for Ragtime
"A sensational portrait of an under-appreciated genius! It's time Maury Yeston is mentioned among the pantheon of composers that includes Richard Rodgers and Stephen Sondheim. This biography may have been written by a musicologist but it reads like a novel—absolutely riveting!" — Andrea Marcovicci, Cabaret Singer/Actress
"Exhaustively researched, conversationally presented, richly stocked with vivid anecdotes, Rosenblum's fluent tour de force preempts a whole shelf of Yeaton studies that are long overdue: the biography, the critical survey of his hits, the technical analysis of his style, and lots more. For good measure, Rosenblum provides an annotated playlist of top tracks and previews of works in progress. Yeston turned eighty in 2025, but he's still going strong, and there's lots in the pipeline." — Matthew Gurewitsch, Contributing Editor, Air Mail