His father was a composer who directed the London College of Music, and his mother was a piano teacher, but the Lloyd Webbers were not as classically oriented as might be presumed. "I always heard music of all kinds, side by side," Lloyd Webber told Leslie Bennetts in the
New York Times. "Nobody ever suggested there was any barrier." He took lessons in violin, piano, and French horn but became fascinated with musical theater early in life. He made model stages with puppets and other figures, and by age nine had written his first musical, based on Oscar Wilde's play
The Importance of Being Earnest. At the age of twelve, Lloyd Webber wrote a fan letter to famed musical composer Richard Rodgers and was invited to meet him. At roughly the same time, he won a scholarship to Westminster School in London, where he continued writing musicals. Some of the songs he later developed in his major works, but, as he revealed in an interview with Catherine Courtney for
Authors and Artists for Young Adults, Lloyd Webber was also developing an interest in architecture. "I really did think that perhaps I wouldn't go in for music at all, but something to do with architecture.
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