Andrew Lloyd Weber

8 Pages 1876 Words

Andrew Lloyd Webber was born on March 22, 1948 in London, England. His home was filled with music and he showed, from an early age, a natural talent for it. He was the son of William Lloyd Webber a composer, musician and musical scholar at the Royal College of Music and his wife Jean Hermione Lloyd Webber a singer, violinist and a piano teacher. They married on October 3, 1942, six years before Andrew was born. His brother Julian was born in 1951. Both grew up in a large flat at Harrington Court, South Kensington, London. Andrew started to play the violin when he was three years old, and then took piano lessons and lessons on the French horn. As a child, he liked playing his own songs rather than someone else’s during his music lessons. Andrew also was also interested in inspecting ancient monuments around England. It and history were what many thought he would do for a career. However, his Aunt Vi introduced him to the theatre and especially musical theatre. She would take him to big musicals like My Fair Lady, and to films like Gigi and South Pacific. Under her advice he began writing music of his own. When he was six he wrote his own songs and at the age of nine he had a piece of music published in the magazine Music Teacher. Soon after, he built a small theatre at home and wrote musicals for it.
Andrew was schooled at the private Wetherby school and in 1956 he entered school at the prestigious Westminster Underschool. He started writing music for the school’s plays and in 1962 he won a Challenge Scholarship that reduced his tuition at Westminster where he continued to compose music and make local musicals within the school. After Westminster, in 1964, Andrew won another scholarship to transfer to Oxford University’s Magdalin College, where he stayed only one term. He started examining different schools and he decided he wanted to write music.

It was during this point that Andrew, then 17, met lyricist Tim Rice 21, and dr...