This is a good time to celebrate music legends

Broadway composer-lyricist Stephen Sondheim turned 90 a week ago, and country artist Kenny Rogers died.

For obvious reasons, we’ve been focused on the coronavirus pandemic in our editorials lately. Today we’ll take a break from that and focus on some beloved musical artists.

We’ve been known to celebrate great artists in this space, but typically such tribute editorials are written after someone passes away.

Just 10 days ago the music world lost Kenny Rogers at the age of 81. Rogers made several appearances in the region, most recently headlining a Christmas concert in 2016. Though best known for his many hits that straddled the line between country and pop, his remarkable career included forays into folk, jazz and even psychedelic rock. That’s not to mention his successful acting career and his work as a businessman. His music and warm presence will be missed.

It’s appropriate to mourn the loss of popular figures in the arts, but it’s also a good idea to celebrate great artists who are still with us.

We have just such an opportunity this week. The legendary Broadway composerlyricist Stephen Sondheim turned 90 a week ago. The occasion was supposed to have been marked by the official opening of a revival of his landmark musical “Company,” but that event fell victim to the pandemic that has shut down cultural life in New York. Instead tributes to Sondheim poured in online from many luminaries of music and theater.

Those who aren’t familiar with Sondheim’s name likely know his work quite well. His first Broadway credits were as lyricist for the beloved “West Side Story” and “Gypsy” in the 1950s, when he was only in his 20s. He wrote the music and lyrics for the 1970s hit “Send in the Clowns,” and in recent years major movies were made from his “Sweeney Todd” and “Into the Woods.”

His is a fascinating life story with a strong Pennsylvania connection. The native New Yorker spent his teenage years in Bucks County, where he met Doylestownarea resident Oscar Hammerstein II of Rodgers and Hammerstein fame.

Hammerstein was a lyricist, playwright and theatrical legend. He took the young Sondheim under his wing and tutored him in the art of creating original, thought-provoking and entertaining musical theater. Sondheim would write, and Hammerstein would critique. Along the way Sondheim received a rigorous education in music composition. The result was an artist who became famous for ingenious wordplay in his lyrics and great originality and complexity in his music.

Though his career began in the 1950s, Sondheim reached his peak in the 1970s with a series of inventive musicals created in partnership with director Harold Prince. Among them were “Company,” “Follies,” “A Little Night Music” and “Sweeney Todd.”

His most popular work, “Into the Woods,” arrived on Broadway in 1987 and lives on in movie form and on countless school and community theater stages. It’s a fractured fairy tale filled with familiar storybook characters thrust into some surprising situations. Though popular with young audiences and performers, it’s quite dark in its themes.

That’s how it is with Sondheim’s work. Though his shows can be enormously entertaining, they’re challenging as well, and full of surprises. “Into the Woods” is a fairy tale where not everyone lives happily ever after. “Sweeney Todd” tells the story of a murderous, vengeful barber in a manner that is marked as much by humor as it is by scares and melodrama.

Sondheim is being celebrated today because his work has lasted. Generations of theater fans have grown up appreciating his songs and shows, and it continues to this day.

In addition to the “Company” revival that’s on hold, this year saw the debut of a new production of “West Side Story.” More productions of Sondheim’s work are sure to follow, not just in New York but on stages all over the world, including schools and community theaters.

We’re happy to report that Sondheim is going strong at 90, and we wish him more years of inspiring artists and audiences.