Stephen Sondheim has been named the recipient of the 2011 Chicago Tribune Literary Prize for lifetime achievement and will accept the award at the Chicago Humanities Festival in November. "'Writing' seems an inadequate word to describe what Stephen Sondheim has done," suggests the Tribune, "yet it is the breadth, impact and influence of his writing that have won him" the award. Marquette University has established the Stephen Sondheim Research Collection after acquiring a vast collection of materials relating to his works from a co-founder of The Sondheim Review.
Stephen Sondheim has been named the recipient of the 2011 Chicago Tribune Literary Prize for lifetime achievement and will accept the award at Chicago's Symphony Center on November 6 as part of the Chicago Humanities Festival. That event will include a conversation with Sondheim about his life and work. Also receiving Tribune awards on that day are authors Jonathan Franzen and Isabel Wilkerson, both recipients of the Heartland Prize.
"'Writing' seems an inadequate word to describe what Stephen Sondheim has done," suggests the Tribune's Mark Caro in the paper's announcement of the award, "yet it is the breadth, impact and influence of his writing that have won him the 2011 Chicago Tribune Literary Prize for lifetime achievement."
Sondheim, already a winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Academy Award, and multiple Grammy and Tony awards, will publish his second book of collected lyrics, Look, I Made a Hat, covering his works from 1981 to 2011, in November, following last year's publication of the first collection, Finishing the Hat, which Paul Simon, in the New York Times Book Review, called "a master class in how to write a musical ... given by the theater’s finest living songwriter."
Read the full story on the Literary Prize at chicagotribune.com. For tickets to the November 6 event with Stephen Sondheim, go to chicagohumanities.org.
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In other Sondheim news, Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, has announced that its libraries' Department of Special Collections and Archives has established the Stephen Sondheim Research Collection after acquiring a vast collection of materials—articles, reviews, memorabilia, audio and video recordings, and more—relating to his works. The collection was amassed over more than 40 years by Paul Salsini, a Marquette University alumnus who co-founded The Sondheim Review, a quarterly magazine devoted to Sondheim’s works, in 1994, and was its editor for ten years.
An exhibit highlighting the collection will be on display in the lobby of Marquette's Raynor Library October 10 to November 28.
For more information, go to marquette.edu.
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To peruse the Stephen Sondheim Nonesuch catalog, head to the Nonesuch Store, where CD orders include high-quality, 320 kbps MP3s at checkout.
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