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Glen Roven

Artistic Director

Glen Roven, four-time Emmy Award winner, is a composer, lyricist, conductor, pianist, translator and CD Producer. He co-created GPRrecords and then created RovenRecords.

 

He made his third Carnegie Hall appearance this March appearing with Bass-Baritone Daniel Okulitch who sang his concert music. The concert was also reprised in Santa Fe at the Opera. Roven made his Carnegie Hall debut conducting his Violin Concerto based on The Runaway Bunny, with Glenn Close and the American Symphony Orchestra and Catherine Zeta-Jones recorded the Piano Trio Version.  He also recorded the piece with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and Brooke Shields for Sony/BMG. Baritone Mark Stone performed an entire evening of Roven’s concert music also at Carnegie Hall. This past Mother’s Day, Soprano Lauren Flanigan debuted his Goodnight Moon, A Lullaby for Soprano and Orchestra, at a free concert in Central Park for 10,000 and has subsequently performed the piece at Alice Tully Hall, Kimmel Center, and all over the country. His 29 Song Cycles and Art Songs (billholabmusic.com) are routinely performed all around in the world. Mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard recently premiered some of his songs at her Carnegie Hall recital and will be recording all of his music for children. He has conducted the National Symphony, the Seattle Symphony, the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, The Munich Philharmonic, The Radio Luxembourg Orchestra, as well as many others, and made his Israeli conducting debut in 2001 conducting the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra in two sold-out concerts honoring Leonard Bernstein. He has conducted for Renee Fleming, Placido Domingo, Jessye Norman, Erwin Schrot, Charles Castronovo and Kathleen Battle and was chosen to conduct four Presidential Inaugural Concerts, as well as America’s Millennium Celebration, produced by Steven Spielberg.

 

 He is co-producing with Carnegie Hall, a new CD and Television Special based on their “Lullaby Project,” with Ms. DiDonato, Patti LuPone, Ansel Elgort, Dianne Reeves, Natalie Merchant and many more. In addition to appearing hundreds of times on television, he has written songs for, conducted and produced for Julie Andrews, Melissa Etheridge, Aretha Franklin, Kenny G., Whitney Houston, Michael Jackson, Quincy Jones, Kermit the Frog, Patti LaBelle, Liza Minnelli, Diana Ross, Martin Short, TRAIN and many others.  He conducted Frank Sinatra’s last concert on television and Sammy Davis’s final television appearance.  Annually, he creates the musical numbers for the AFI Tribute and last year it won it’s first Emmy for Best Variety Special.

 

He wrote the songs for the animated Fox Christmas Special, SANTA, BABY starring Patti LaBelle, Gregory Hines and Vanessa Williams as well as producing the Platinum Album. This year, he received his 12th Emmy Nomination for OUTSTANDING SONG OF THE YEAR. For the Millennium, he was asked to conduct and arrange for Quincy Jones and Steven Spielberg their Gala Millennium concert in Washington on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial for CBS.

 

He won his first Emmy for the 1986 Tony Awards Show. Recently, there has hardly been a Television Special that he hasn't written, arranged and conducted. He began his TV career working for Alexander H. Cohen, contributing to 4 Tony Shows, 2 Emmys, Happy Birthday, Hollywood (co-produced with Jack Haley, Jr.), The Placido Domingo Special, NBC's 60th Anniversary Special, all three Night of 100 Stars to name a few. For George Schlatter, he won his forth Emmy for SINATRA; 80 Years, His Way; also for Schlatter, he has written and conducted The Sammy Davis 60th Anniversary Tribute, The Richard Pryor Tribute, The Muhammad Ali Tribute, Welcome Home America, The Meaning of Life, The American Television Awards, The Comedy Hall of Fame, SHE-TV (with Carsey-Werner) and the annual American Comedy Awards, The AFI Tribute to Harrison Ford, among others. For Don Mischer, he has conducted the Kennedy Center Honors, the Prime Time Emmys, Bravo’s Tribute to John Travolta and Bravo’s Tribute to Ron Howard, plus the last five AFI Tributes. For Disney Television, he wrote and conceived the musical numbers for the ANIMAL KINGDOM THEME PARK OPENING SPECIAL, MGM/DISNEY Studio Grand Opening, The Grand Opening of Euro/Disney, The Best of Disney’s Music, Disney’s Greatest Hits on Ice (produced by Steve Binder), The Nancy Kerrigan Special, Disney’s Champions on Ice, Melinda, The First Lady of Magic (produced by Steve Binder), Incredible Animal Tales, plus Michelle Kwan’s Ice Special (Steve Binder). Other credits include: The last 10 AFI Tributes, NBC’s CLAY AIKEN CHRISTMAS SPECIAL, with Aiken, Barry Manilow, Megan Mullaley & Yolanda Adams; AFI Tribute to George Lucas; The Presidential Gala at Ford’s Theatre, Leonard Bernstein's 60th Birthday Tribute, We Interrupt This Week, The Ed Sullivan Christmas Special, Elizabeth Taylor’s 60th Birthday Celebration plus many others. He composed all the songs for the Comedy Central Series/RikMil Production, VIVA VARIETY  (Emmy Nomination Best Theme).

 

He has written the opening numbers for the past 15 AFI tributes on TV. In the corporate world, he routinely does all the music for Steve Wynn and Michael Milken projects.

 

He began his Broadway career as a rehearsal pianist for Pippin while still in high school, and at nineteen was the musical director of Sugar Babies on Broadway. He also wrote the scores for John Guare’s, Lydie Breeze and Gardenia, Christopher Isherwood’s A Meeting By the River and Larry Gelbart’s Mastergate, plus was a contributing composer to A…My Name is Alice. He is a contributing author to Games We Played, a collection of essays published by Simon and Schuster. His musical Norman’s Ark, played the Ford Theater in LA, directed by Peter Schneider with a cast of 200. His first musical, Heart’s Desire, written with Armistead Maupin, played the Cleveland Playhouse and the Shaftesbury Theater in London. A translator of note, he recently published his English version (classicalvocalreprints.com) of all of Mahler’s song cycles, Schubert’s Winterreise, Mozart’s Figaro, Cosi, and Don Giovanni and Wolf’s Italian Songbook.  

 

 

 

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