John Harold Kander (born March 18, 1927 in Kansas City, Missouri) is the American composer of a series of musical theatre successes as part of the songwriting team of Kander and Ebb. Kander attended The Pembroke Country-Day School and Oberlin College before earning a master's degree at Columbia University. He began his Broadway career as substitute rehearsal pianist for West Side Story. The stage manager for West Side Story then asked Kander to play the auditions for her next show Gypsy. During the auditions Kander met the choreographer, Jerome Robbins, who then suggested that Kander actually write the dance music for the show in 1959. After that experience, he wrote dance arrangements for Irma la Douce in 1960. His first produced musical was A Family Affair, written with James and William Goldman. In 1965 he teamed up with Fred Ebb to write Flora the Red Menace, produced by Hal Prince, directed by George