Claude-Michel Schonberg
b. 1944, France. A composer, author, and record producer, Schönberg began his collaboration with Alain Boublil in 1973 with the first-ever staged French rock opera LA REVOLUTION FRANCAISE, which played to capacity audiences and sold over 350,000 double-albums. A year later he sang his own music and lyrics on an album which spawned the hit single Le Premier Pas. In 1978, he and Boublil started work on the musical Les Misérables which was presented at the Palais des Sports in Paris in September 1980. The concept album won two gold discs in 1981. LES MISÉRABLES (with English lyrics by Herbert Kretzmer) opened at the Barbican Theatre in London on 30 September 1985, and transferred to the Palace Theatre in December of that year before settling in for a long run. When the show was produced on Broadway in 1987, Schönberg won Tony Awards for best score and book, and a Grammy for Best Original Cast recording. In January 1994, LES MISÉRABLES became the third longest-running musical in London theatre history. Schonberg and Boublil's next project, Miss Saigon, was acclaimed both in London (1989) and New York (1991). Two more of the partners’ compositions, Rhapsody For Piano And Orchestra and Symphonic Suite, were premiered at London's Royal Albert Hall in 1992.