Stephen Schwartz inducted into the Long Island Music and Entertainment Hall of Fame
Stephen Schwartz, the four-time Grammy and three-time Oscar award-winning composer behind hit musicals such as Wicked, Godspell, and Pippin, was inducted into the Long Island Music and Entertainment Hall of Fame on March 23. The celebration included theater stars performing his songs and recorded messages of congratulations from celebrities like Kristin Chenoweth and Victor Garber, who worked with Schwartz.
“My parents are finally proud,” Schwartz, who grew up in Williston Park and graduated from Mineola High School, jested. “I told them, ‘I’m going to get this Long Island Music and Entertainment Hall of Fame,’ and they were like, ‘ At last.’ They were very pleased; they were very excited.”
While attending high school, Schwartz studied piano and composition at the Julliard School. He graduated from Carnegie Mellon University in 1968 with a Bachelor’s in Fine Arts in drama.
After graduating, he returned to New York to work as an artist and repertoire producer for RCA Records, but shortly after began working on Broadway. His first major credit was the title song for the play Butterflies Are Free.
By age 26 in 1974, Schwartz had three hit musicals on Broadway simultaneously: Godspell, Pippin and The Magic Show. Schwartz is also well-known for the hit Broadway musical Wicked, which opened in 2003 and is currently running on Broadway and in several productions worldwide.
“[Long Island] was a great place to grow up if you wanted to do what I did,” Schwartz said. “First of all, of course, the proximity to New York City, but then I just went to a public high school. It wasn’t a fancy private school. It was Mineola High School. They had a great drama department, great music… I came out with really such a solid base in the humanities from high school and some of my friends from high school are here tonight.”
In fact, the Mineola High School chorus class recorded a message that was displayed during the ceremony, congratulating Schwartz for his accomplishment.
Beyond the stage, Schwartz is also known for film. He collaborated with composer Alan Menken for the songs in Disney’s Pocahontas, The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Enchanted. He also provided songs for DreamWorks’ first animated feature, The Prince of Egypt. On Nov. 27, 2024, part one of the film adaptation of Wicked will be released in theaters.
“To have a big two-part movie of one of my shows is really exciting,” Schwartz said. “It’s been so much fun to work on so far.”
One of the central messages of the evening is just how much Schwartz has changed the trajectory of fellow theater professionals’ lives, including that of Paul Shaffer and Stephen Reinhardt.
“I owe a good chunk of my life to his opening that door for me,” said Reinhardt, the keyboard player and musical director for Godspell and The Magic Show. “I had been a professional dancer and singer on Broadway and decided I wanted to be a singer-songwriter, and he got a hold of me and kind of molded me into a music director.”
Similarly, Paul Shaffer, in 1972, went to the audition for the Toronto production of Godspell to provide piano accompaniment for his friends trying out. Because Schwartz noticed his skills, his life would change forever.
“I played one song for a girlfriend of mine and Stephen Schwartz said, ‘I want to talk to that piano player,’” Shaffer explained. “And he said, can you stay for the rest of the day and play the auditions?’ And I did and at the end of it, he said ‘Do you think you can get a band together and conduct a show?’ I never did anything like that before.”
Shaffer went on to play piano for The Magic Show and then Saturday Night Live, followed by serving as musical director for David Letterman’s Late Night and Late Show. He has served as musical director and producer for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony since its inception in 1986.
Tom Needham, the second vice chair of the Long Island Music and Entertainment Hall of Fame who served as a producer on this induction, explained that Schwartz always pays tribute to his Long Island roots.
“It’s really encouraging to us because that’s what we’re celebrating,” Needham said.
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