Marvin Hamlisch is a lucky man — and he tells you so.

Hamlisch — the legendary composer and winner of Oscars, Grammys, Emmys and Tony awards — may never have been born if it weren’t for his father’s smarts. Hamlisch will be in Kansas City on Thursday evening, Nov. 3, to perform as part of the Midwest Center for Holocaust Education’s 18th Anniversary Celebration at the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts.

During a recent interview, Hamlisch retold the story of his parents’ escape from Vienna back in the mid-1930s. His father, Max Hamlisch, was also a musician who traveled back and forth on the train to Lichtenstein for a musical job. The political climate was terrible with the Nazis all around. Marvin Hamlisch takes the story from there:

“A lot of Jews in Austria thought it was a passing phase but he didn’t. He was a very smart man and saw things coming. On one particular day the conductor said, ‘Max, don’t stay on this train.’ It was going someplace to round up Jews and take them to camps. My mother (Lilly) was such a good packer that she packed for my father and she put grapefruit into the bell of his saxophone. So when my father was confronted by an SS guy he tells him to pull down one of his cases and the SS opens it and turns it upside down and these three grapefruit come down on the officer. He was so embarrassed, that he sent my father to another compartment. . . and my father just jumped for it, and the people inside the train threw his instruments and suitcases off to him.”

In the meantime, Hamlisch’s mother Lilly was hustled out of Vienna in the back of a car with a blanket over her. She made it into Switzerland where she briefly worked with children.

“My mother was fantastic with children, and they offered her to stay and teach but she and my father had other plans,” Hamlisch said.

Those plans were a rendezvous in England and sailing for America.

“They arrived in America on Thanksgiving Day but they didn’t know anything about it,” he said. “They were picked up and taken to this fantastic dinner and thought that’s how everything would be, but the next day reality set in.”

That reality included settling in New York City and raising Marvin, who was a musical genius at a young age. Hamlisch said being Jewish impacted his upbringing.

“Jewish parents tend to advocate for a good education and my parents did, and that led me to Juilliard,” he said.

Hamlisch was 7 when he first started at Juilliard’s professional division for children. He was the youngest student ever accepted into the program. He attended P.S. No. 9 in New York City, later going on to Queens College where he took night classes while he worked as a rehearsal pianist on Broadway during the day. Did Hamlisch want to be a professional musician like his father?

“I’m not sure it was about wanting to be,” said Hamlisch. “If you’re born with a talent it almost pushes you like a tide. When you’re born with a talent, that’s it.”

And if he hadn’t become an accomplished pianist, composer and songwriter, what would Hamlisch have done?

“It I wasn’t a musician, the thing I would have done is be a pediatrician,” he said. “I really like kids.”

Hamlisch has been a prolific composer for both the stage and screen. His vast body of work includes “They’re Playing Our Song” and “A Chorus Line,” for which his score won a Tony Award. That show holds a special place in his musical heart.

“My favorite piece is ‘At the Ballet.’ It is the heart and soul of the musical,” he said.

Hamlisch’s film work has included “The Way We Were” and “The Sting.”

These days, Hamlisch is on the road about 70 percent of the time with concerts of his own or as conductor and musical director for other stars, including Idina Menzel, the original Elphaba in the musical “Wicked”.

He is also the principal pops conductor for a number of orchestras including those in Pittsburgh, Milwaukee and Dallas.

“We are so thrilled to have someone as accomplished as Marvin Hamlisch with us,” said Barbra Porter Hill who, along with her husband, Ron Hill, and Rich and Judy Hastings are co-chairing MCHE’s celebration. “He brings his personal story along with him and that ties right into MCHE and our goals to educate and remember.”

When he’s not on the road, Hamlisch loves spending time with his wife of 23 years, Terre Blair, and watching baseball. He’s an avid New York Yankees fan.

“I still have the first Yankees shirt I got at age 6,” he said. “I’ve been a fan for 40 years.”

And he’s writing.

“I always prefer writing, but that doesn’t mean I don’t like conducting,” Hamlisch said.
Hamlisch is currently working on a Broadway show with DreamWorks, which he hopes will be done in two years. He couldn’t give many details about the show other than to say, “It’s about real people doing real things.”

For the Kansas City concert, Hamlisch has put together a special program.

“I will choose things that are appropriate,” he said. “There will be special moments . . . (but) I never do a concert of all my own music. I don’t want people to think it’s all about me.”

MCHE celebrates 18 years

MCHE will celebrate its 18th anniversary and honor the Kansas City Jewish community’s Holocaust survivors at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 3, in Helzberg Hall at the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts. Marvin Hamlisch will perform along with featured singer Mark McVey, who made his Broadway debut as Jean Valjean in “Les Miserables.” For information on patron opportunities and donor tickets, visit www.mchekc.org, call 913-327-8192 or email .