John Kander (1937 - )

For more than sixty years, composer John Kander (he/him) has powered some of the most iconic stories and sounds in American entertainment from Broadway stages to Hollywood films to the American Songbook. With a collaborative catalogue spanning more than twenty shows and over 530 songs (most famously with lyricist Fred Ebb), he has never shied away from the world’s hardest truths. Kander’s musicals carry deep social and LGBTQIA+ resonance — from Cabaret, which portrays pre–World War II Berlin and the peril its residents faced as Hitler rose to power, to Chicago, set in 1924, where justice, celebrity, and “all that jazz” collide in a world that turns crime into entertainment. Kiss of the Spider Woman tells of a gay man’s struggle for dignity after he is imprisoned for his sexuality, while The Scottsboro Boys confronts the state‑sanctioned racism inflicted on nine Black teenagers in 1931 Alabama.  Kander’s artistry may also be uplifting in the iconic anthem, New York, New York that reminds us “making it there” means “you can make it anywhere.”  He has been married to dancer/choreographer Albert Stephenson since 2010.