Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber has written some of the most commercially successful musicals of the last quarter of the twentieth century. Among his most popular shows are Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (1967), Jesus Christ Superstar (1971), Evita (1974), Cats (1981), The Phantom of the Opera (1986), and Sunset Boulevard (1993). Lloyd Webber's gift for melody has spawned such classic musical theater songs as "Memory" and "Music of the Night."

Lloyd Webber was born in London on March 22, 1948. His father was a faculty member at the Royal College of Music and his mother was a piano teacher. Andrew showed musical aptitude at a very young age, and, while still a youth, composed short musical entertainments for his family.

His first musical was Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (1967). With lyricist Tim Rice, Lloyd Webber created an eclectic score to accompany the Old Testament story of Joseph and...