Andrew Lloyd Webber theatre. He also had originally set music to "Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats" at the age of 15. In 1965, Lloyd Webber was a Queen's Scholar at Westminster School and studied history for a term at Magdalen College, Oxford, although he abandoned the course in the winter of 1965 to study at the Royal College of Music and pursue his interest in musical theatre. In 1965, when Lloyd Webber was a 17-year-old budding musical-theatre composer, he was introduced to the 20-year-old aspiring pop-song writer Tim Rice. Their first collaboration was "The Likes of Us", a musical based on the
Andrew Lloyd Webber Him" from "Jesus Christ Superstar", "Don't Cry for Me, Argentina" from "Evita", "Any Dream Will Do" from "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" and "Memory" from "Cats". In 2001 "The New York Times" referred to him as "the most commercially successful composer in history". Ranked the "fifth most powerful person in British culture" by "The Daily Telegraph" in 2008, the lyricist Don Black stated "Andrew more or less single-handedly reinvented the musical." He has received a number of awards, including a knighthood in 1992, followed by a peerage from Queen Elizabeth II for services to Music, six Tonys, three Grammys