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Coming from SUNY Press in 2026:
A VERY UNUSUAL WAY
Maury Yeston and His Singular Path
to Broadway and Beyond
Maury Yeston, the celebrated composer/lyricist of the Tony Award-winning musicals Nine, Titanic, and Grand Hotel, has not, until now, been the subject of a full-length study of his career and his work. Author Joshua Rosenblum sets out to increase appreciation for Yeston’s work and establish his place in musical theater history. Rosenblum gives behind-the-scenes accounts of Yeston’s Broadway musicals and appraises his songs with revelatory analyses that can be appreciated by musicians and lay readers alike. Yeston, an unusually articulate, charming, and enlightening orator, is quoted liberally throughout the book, offering priceless insights into his work, his process, and the numerous well-known artistic figures who have featured prominently in his life, including Stephen Sondheim, Antonio Banderas, Placido Domingo, Federico Fellini, Kate Hudson, Raul Julia, Ed Kleban, Jane Krakowski, Alan Jay Lerner, Sophia Loren, Yo-Yo Ma, Andrea Marcovicci, Rob Marshall, Alan Menken, Mike Nichols, Barbra Streisand, Peter Stone, Tommy Tune, and Jonathan Tunick. As a bonus, “Advice to Young Theater Composers,” his legendary discourse, is included in full as an appendix.
“A sensational portrait of an under-appreciated genius! It’s time Maury Yeston is
mentioned among the pantheon of composers that includes Richard Rodgers and
Stephen Sondheim. This biography may have been written by a musicologist but it reads
like a novel—absolutely riveting!”
-- Andrea Marcovicci, Cabaret Singer/Actress
"I’ve known Maury Yeston for years, but feel as if I’ve just met him. Joshua Rosenblum’s
extraordinary biography captures the relentless energy, brilliance and delight of one of
our greatest musical theater composers."
-- Lynn Ahrens, Tony Award-winning lyricist, Ragtime
“Josh Rosenblum has embarked on an exceptional intellectual project—taking some of
the luminaries of American musical theater whose names may not be instantly familiar
to those outside it, in the way that Loesser or Sondheim may be, and still treating them
with the seriousness and detailed attentiveness they deserve. Having explored the
shining work of Shire & Maltby, he now turns to the equally gifted and accomplished
Maury Yeston, author of Nine and Titanic and many memorable song cycles, and gives
us a scholarly study of his work that is revelatory even for those of us who thought we
knew it well. An essential book for students of the great American art form and one of
its masters.”
-- Adam Gopnik, contributing writer, The New Yorker
“Exhaustively researched, conversationally presented, richly stocked with vivid
anecdotes, Rosenblum’s fluent tour de force preempts a whole shelf of Yeston studies
that are long overdue: the biography, the critical survey of his hits, the technical analysis
of his style, and lots more. For good measure, Rosenblum provides an annotated playlist
of top tracks and previews of works in progress. Yeston turned 80 in 2025, but he’s still
going strong, and there’s lots in the pipeline.”
-- Matthew Gurewitsch, critic and cultural commentator
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