Maury Yeston

Maury Yeston (born October 23, 1945) is an American composer, lyricist and music theorist.

Yeston has written the music and lyrics for several Broadway musicals and is also a classical orchestral and ballet composer. Among his Broadway musicals are Nine in 1982, Titanic in 1997, for both of which he won Tony Awards for Best Musical and Best Score and was nominated for Grammy Awards, and Grand Hotel in 1989, for which he was nominated for a Tony Award for best score and two Drama Desk Awards for his music and lyrics. He composed, in addition, the incidental music for the Broadway production of The Royal Family in 2009. He received a third Grammy nomination for the revival of Nine in 2004, which won a Tony Award for Best revival of a musical. He also was nominated for an Academy Award and a Golden Globe for two of his new songs in the film version of Nine (Take It All and Cinema Italiano).

His musical version of the novel The Phantom of the Opera, titled Phantom (1991), has received more than 1,000 productions worldwide. His off-Broadway musicals include Death Takes a Holiday (2011), nominated for eleven Drama Desk Awards. His classical works include December Songs, a classical crossover song cycle commissioned by Carnegie Hall for its centennial celebration; An American Cantata: 2000 Voices (a three-movement choral symphony commissioned by the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts for its millennium celebration); Tom Sawyer: A Ballet in Three Acts, a full-length story ballet commissioned by the Kansas City Ballet for the opening of the new Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts in Kansas City; a Cello Concerto, premiered by Yo-Yo Ma; and other pieces for chamber ensembles and solo piano.

Earlier in his career, Yeston was an associate professor of music and Director of Undergraduate Studies in Music at Yale University for eight years, authoring two scholarly books on music theory published by Yale University Press (The Stratification of Musical Rhythm and Readings in Schenker Analysis), and subsequently presided over and taught the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theater Workshop in New York City for more than two decades beginning in 1982. Yeston has won two Tony Awards, two Drama Desk Awards and an Olivier Award, and was inducted into The Theater Hall of Fame in 2023.