Press & Media
The Manhattan School of Music (click below to play)
Gladstone’s Library will host Alibis in the Archive online (October 9-10, 2021). The festival promises to serve up crime-writing clues and confessions, and tips on cracking (fictional) cases. Rupert Holmes will be a guest and speaker, appearing live online October 9, 2021 (3:30PM UK time, 10:30AM US ET) for the event’s “Murder On Stage” segment. Noted British mystery novelist and editor Martin Edwards will host the segment, joined by Edgar-award-winning writers Rupert Holmes and Joseph Goodrich.
To his Tony awards for Best Book and Best Score for his Tony award-winning musical, his four Drama Desk awards, his National Broadway Theatre Award for Best Play, his two Edgar Awards from the Mystery Writers of America, and his career achievement George M. Cohen Award from ASCAP, Holmes now adds this most meaningful award: Doctor of Musical Arts Honoris-Causa from one of the world’s greatest music conservatories, bestowed at the MSM commencement ceremony on May 20, 2021.
See The Mystery of Edwin Drood Reunion on Seth Rudetsky and James Wesley’s Stars in the House, with special guests Betty Buckley, Patti Cohenour, John Herrara, Rupert Holmes, Judy Kuhn, Howard McGillin and Donna Murphy.
By Jason Campbell, Culture Sonar, March 2020
Few figures in the entertainment industry have mastered as many mediums as vocalist, songwriter, producer, arranger, and playwright Rupert Holmes. In a career that has spanned more than five decades, he has conquered the realms of radio, television, and theatre. His first success came via pop-rockers The Buoys, who scored a hit with his lurid survivalist tale “Timothy“ in 1971.
Between 1974 and 1981, Holmes released seven albums that display his gifts as a tunesmith and storyteller. Known by many as the man behind “Escape (The Piña Colada Song),” he remains a whole lot more than what that novelty hit might suggest, hence his in-demand role as a producer and songwriter during the 1970s.
By Joe Marchese, The Second Disc
There are songs that sound like movies/There are themes that fill the screen/There are lines I say that sound as if they’re written/There are looks I wear the theatre should have seen…
With those words, Rupert Holmes welcomed listeners into his singular musical world – one in which the only limits were those of the singer-songwriter’s boundless imagination. In other words, there were no limits to Holmes’ finely crafted, elaborately realized pop dramas. His 1974 Epic Records debut, Widescreen, was filled with those songs that sound like movies, and now it’s about to be reissued as part of a box set appropriately entitled Songs That Sound Like Movies: The Complete Epic Recordings. This 3-CD collection, out today from Cherry Red Records, presents the first three albums created by the nonpareil musical storyteller and his collaborator and sonic wizard, producer-engineer Jeffrey Lesser, all of which pushed the boundaries of what was expected from pop music. The reissue of these long out-of-print treasures might be cause enough to celebrate, but to sweeten the deal, the label has added a number of rare and previously unreleased bonus tracks. If you only know Rupert Holmes from “Escape (The Pina Colada Song),” you’re in for a particular treat.