Famed composer Marvin Hamlisch remembered

People around the world today are remembering an American music icon, who died here in Los Angeles.

Marvin Hamlisch, conducting the Pasadena Pops.

Marvin Hamlisch is probably best known for his score for The Way We Were and his Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway show A Chorus Line. He was only one of two people to have ever won Oscars, Emmys, Grammys, Tonys, and a Pulitzer.

His death at age 68 came as a shock to the Paul Jan Zdunek, president of the Pasadena Symphony and Pops, one of several symphonies he conducted.

“He’s still going as busy as he ever was,” Zdunek noted, citing a new movie about Liberace and a score to a new film version of ​The Nutty Professor. “He was like the Energizer bunny. He was unstoppable.”

Zdunek says Hamlisch had just recently signed a 3-year contract with the Pasadena symphony.

“This wasn’t a career for him – what he did was who he was,” Zdunick said. “He was like a quiet giant.”

KCRW’s Steve Chiotakis spoke with Zdunek about the composer’s personal and musical contributions.