Pop Musicals

Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber, a man whose (0) compositions, eclectic rock based works, helped (1) ......... British and American (2) ......... theatre in the late XX century. As a student at Oxford University, a (3) ......... was founded between Webber and Timothy Rice to put on dramatic productions. Their first (4) ......... successful venture was “Joseph and The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat”, a pop oratorio for children that earned world-wide acclaim. It was followed by the rock opera, “Jesus Christ Superstar”, an extremely popular, though (5) ......... work that blended classical forms to tell the story of Jesus' life. This show ran longer than any other similar show in British (6) ......... history. Lloyd Webber’s last (7) ......... collaboration with Rice was on “Evita”. “Cats” was his next major production, in which he set to music verses from a children’s book by T.S. Eliot. With two (8) ......... Charles Hart and Richard Stilgoe, he then composed a hugely successful version of “The Phantom of the Opera”. Lloyd Webber’s best works were flashy spectacles that featured vivid melodies and forceful and dramatic staging. He was able to blend such varied and (9) ......... genres as rock and roll, English music-hall song, and (10) ......... forms into music that had a wide mass appeal.

COMPOSE VITAL MUSIC PARTNER NOTE CONTROVERSY THEATRE ART LYRIC SIMILAR OPERA

6. For Questions read the text about an English manager and think of the word which best fits each space.

Artist development manager

Patti Wilkins is (1) ……… artist development manager who lives and works in London. She specialises in pop music and (2) ……… for managing the production (3) ……… a pop singer’s new single or album and (4) ……… that it involves.

She is the person who selects the songs for the album, the photographs for publicity purposes, who shoots the video and chooses the clothes the singer (5) ……… for that video. In (6) ……… typical day she will meet the people designing the artwork for the album, the singer’s manager, journalists, and marketing managers.

(7) ……… the week she will have to listen to the hundreds of tapes that are (8) ……… to the record company by singers and bands hoping to (9) ……… famous one day. She needs to understand (10) ……… makes a good pop band and at the same time has to be (11) ……… to spot star potential. In (12) ……… of working long hours she feels it is (13) ……… it when a dong finally gets into the pop charts.

She learnt about the pop industry by (14) ……… work experience and editing British pop magazines (15) ……… well as taking a business course. In that way she (16) ……… out how to go about marketing and selling in the highly competitive music industry.

7. Read a magazine article about modern music in Britain. Seven paragraphs have been removed from the article. Choose from the paragraphs A-H the one which fits each gap (1 –7). There is one extra paragraph which you do not need to use.