Gary William Friedman

Gary William Friedman is an American musical theatre, symphonic, film and television composer. His career began in the 1960s in New York City as a saxophonist in an improvisational ensemble and as a composer for experimental theater. Friedman's 1970 musical, The Me Nobody Knows opened Off-Broadway and won the Obie Award for Best Music of a Musical before moving to Broadway and earning five Tony Award nominations. Friedman has also composed scores for numerous American films and television series such as PBS's children's television series, The Electric Company. His orchestral and operatic compositions have been commissioned by festivals and venues including the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

Born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, Friedman was a saxophonist and band leader at Abraham Lincoln High School. While attending Brooklyn College, Friedman studied composition with Hall Overton and Jan Meyerowitz. After completing his post-graduate studies in education, Friedman studied electronic music composition with Vladimir Ussachevsky, at the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center.

Friedman performed as a saxophonist throughout the early 1960s and became a key member of the Free-Form Improvisational Ensemble with Burton Greene and Alan Silva. In September 1964, the group was featured in concert at New York City's Town Hall, where Friedman's Benjamin, A Brass Quintet premiered.

During this period, Friedman's theatrical career began as the composer of scores for plays by Paul Foster, Tom Eyen, and Jean-Claude van Itallie at Ellen Stewart's La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club. His first major critical and commercial success was as composer of the 1970 musical The Me Nobody Knows, for which Will Holt and Herb Schapiro wrote the lyrics. After winning the Obie Award for Best Music of a Musical, the show transferred to Broadway in 1971, where it garnered five Tony Award nominations, including Best Score. The show went on to be produced and performed throughout the world, in cities such as Hamburg, London, Paris and Johannesburg. Two songs from the show, "Light Sings", recorded by The 5th Dimension, and "This World", recorded by The Staples Singers, became top pop singles. In 1980, The Me Nobody Knows was produced as a special Showtime television presentation, introduced and hosted by James Earl Jones.

In 1975 Friedman served as music director for PBS television's The Electric Company, for which he wrote over 60 songs, including the popular "Spider-Man Theme Song". Friedman's musical Taking My Turn, for which Holt wrote the lyrics, won the Outer Critics Circle Award in 1983, and was presented on PBS's Great Performances series with a cast that included Margaret Whiting, Marni Nixon, and Cissy Houston. Friedman's features and television film scores include Full Moon High (1981), starring Alan Arkin and Adam Arkin, Who Gets The Friends (1988), starring Lucie Arnaz and Jill Clayburgh, and Bump In The Night (1991), starring Christopher Reeve.

Friedman has co-produced and composed original material for several internationally acclaimed jazz recordings with his wife, vocalist and lyricist, Stevie Holland. Their album, Before Love Has Gone (150 Music), was chosen by USA Today as a Top CD of The Year in 2008.[10] Friedman's orchestral, operatic and dance works have been commissioned and performed at venues such as the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the Lancaster Music Festival, the Columbus Symphony, and Encompass New Opera Theatre. Ligeia, an orchestral chamber work inspired by the short story of the same name by Edgar Allan Poe, had its world premiere in October 2011 with the Pit Stop Players at The DiMenna Center for the Arts in New York City. His liturgical works include An American S'Lichot, a Hebrew choral and orchestral work that is performed annually at synagogues throughout the United States on the S’lichot holy day. A selection of Friedman's symphonic works was recorded and released on the CD Colloquy in 2008 by 150 Music.[11]

After completing his post-graduate studies in 1960, Friedman worked as a licensed teacher in New York City public school system. He taught an advanced course in music for film at Carnegie Mellon University in 1985 and writing for theater at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in 1993.

Friedman married singer-lyricist Stevie Holland in 1999. He has two children from his first marriage to Barbara Ellen Miller, who died in 1997.