Once Upon A December
Stephen Flaherty & Lynn Ahrens
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Browse piano sheets by Stephen Flaherty & Lynn Ahrens on Zen Virtual Piano. Stephen Flaherty told American Theatre that people sometimes assume the Russian winter imagery of Once Upon a December was written in Russia, when in fact it was written in Manhattan during a heat wave, with the air conditioner not working. He added that you have to convince yourself you can imagine what winter must be like in Russia. A winter lullaby written in a heat wave suggests a writing partnership that relies on imagination to bring distant places to life, with the room they work in mattering less than the world they picture. On their official site, Ahrens and Flaherty write that their collaboration began in the BMI Musical Theater Workshop in New York City, where they met by chance and wrote their first song together. They say one song led to another, the songs became musicals and the musicals became a body of work, an ongoing dialogue in words and music between two people who love their work and love doing it together. A partnership that began with one chance meeting and one song suggests a relationship in which the work grew out of conversation more than a plan. Entertainment Weekly describes the Anastasia film’s soundtrack as composed by Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty, a Broadway team behind Ragtime and Once on This Island, making their feature film debut. Once Upon a December is the lullaby inside Anastasia’s music box, and it was one of the first two songs the pair wrote for the film as part of their audition. Flaherty explains that the circular motion of winding a music box, with its figures dancing in a circle, suggested to him three-quarter time, a waltz, and an earlier time. A waltz drawn from the turning of a music box points to a composer who lets the object in the scene decide the shape of the music. Lynn Ahrens told The Interval that for the stage version of Anastasia they decided not to simply put the movie on the stage; twenty years on, they felt they and the world had changed, and wanted to make it a little more mature, more emotional and more for adults. Flaherty says Anastasia has long combined classical and popular elements and that he took that as his lead for the score, which draws on Russian choral music and many new Russian-sounding themes; the songs for Anastasia and Dimitri are much more pop and are orchestrated in a way that keeps the music firmly in the world of Russia. Returning to a story after twenty years, with a score of choral Russian colour and much more pop songs for Anastasia and Dimitri, can be read as a way of letting a familiar tale grow up alongside its writers. Their official site lists the Tony Award, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle and Olivier Awards among the team’s honours, along with nominations for two Academy Awards, two Golden Globes and four Grammys. In 2015 Ahrens and Flaherty were inducted into the Theater Hall of Fame.
Browse piano sheets by Stephen Flaherty & Lynn Ahrens on Zen Virtual Piano.
Stephen Flaherty told American Theatre that people sometimes assume the Russian winter imagery of Once Upon a December was written in Russia, when in fact it was written in Manhattan during a heat wave, with the air conditioner not working. He added that you have to convince yourself you can imagine what winter must be like in Russia. A winter lullaby written in a heat wave suggests a writing partnership that relies on imagination to bring distant places to life, with the room they work in mattering less than the world they picture.
On their official site, Ahrens and Flaherty write that their collaboration began in the BMI Musical Theater Workshop in New York City, where they met by chance and wrote their first song together. They say one song led to another, the songs became musicals and the musicals became a body of work, an ongoing dialogue in words and music between two people who love their work and love doing it together. A partnership that began with one chance meeting and one song suggests a relationship in which the work grew out of conversation more than a plan.
Entertainment Weekly describes the Anastasia film’s soundtrack as composed by Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty, a Broadway team behind Ragtime and Once on This Island, making their feature film debut. Once Upon a December is the lullaby inside Anastasia’s music box, and it was one of the first two songs the pair wrote for the film as part of their audition. Flaherty explains that the circular motion of winding a music box, with its figures dancing in a circle, suggested to him three-quarter time, a waltz, and an earlier time. A waltz drawn from the turning of a music box points to a composer who lets the object in the scene decide the shape of the music.
Lynn Ahrens told The Interval that for the stage version of Anastasia they decided not to simply put the movie on the stage; twenty years on, they felt they and the world had changed, and wanted to make it a little more mature, more emotional and more for adults. Flaherty says Anastasia has long combined classical and popular elements and that he took that as his lead for the score, which draws on Russian choral music and many new Russian-sounding themes; the songs for Anastasia and Dimitri are much more pop and are orchestrated in a way that keeps the music firmly in the world of Russia. Returning to a story after twenty years, with a score of choral Russian colour and much more pop songs for Anastasia and Dimitri, can be read as a way of letting a familiar tale grow up alongside its writers.
Their official site lists the Tony Award, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle and Olivier Awards among the team’s honours, along with nominations for two Academy Awards, two Golden Globes and four Grammys. In 2015 Ahrens and Flaherty were inducted into the Theater Hall of Fame.
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Stephen Flaherty & Lynn Ahrens
Common questions
They are a Broadway songwriting team, behind Ragtime and Once on This Island, whose collaboration began in the BMI Musical Theater Workshop in New York City.
Flaherty says it was written in Manhattan during a heat wave, with the air conditioner not working.
He explains that the circular motion of winding a music box, with its figures dancing in a circle, suggested to him three-quarter time, a waltz, and an earlier time.
Their official site lists the Tony Award, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle and Olivier Awards, and nominations for two Academy Awards, two Golden Globes and four Grammys.