Television

Elliott is in his 11th year with the A&E Television Network as host of Breakfast with the Arts (Sunday mornings at 8am-10am/ET).  Breakfast is the only regularly scheduled national television show dedicated to the classical art forms of classical music, ballet, opera, theater and film. The show features award winning documentaries, performance pieces and interviews with guests from all forms of artistic disciplines.  Previous guests include Kenneth Branagh, Yo-Yo Ma, Itzhak Perlman, Joshua Bell, Catherine Deneauve, Isabella Rossilini, Phil Collins, Blythe Danner, Alec Baldwin, Matthew Broderick, Chazz Palminteri, Laurie Anderson, Vanessa Redgrave, Stanley Tucci, opera stars Cecilia Bartoli and Marlyn Horne, film composers John Barry and James Horner, choreographers Twyla Tharp, Eliot Feld, Peter Martins, David Parsons and Paul Taylor, conductors Michael Tilson Thomas, Kurt Masur and Keith Lockhart, among many others.   Additional A&E hosting duties have included Biography® This Week, Richard Rodgers: Falling in Love, Holiday in New York, A&E In Concert, Pavarotti in Paris and The Pablo Casals Festival from Puerto Rico.

 

For more than five years Elliott has been a “voice” of programs and specials on CNN.  He voiced the opening segments on CNN for the 2000 Presidential debates, Vice Presidential debates, Election Night Coverage, the Bush Inauguration and The Attacks on America. He voiced the CNN series: CONNIE CHUNG TONIGHT, Live from..., The Point, Newsstand, and Impact.  A popular voice over artist, he has recorded national and regional commercials, documentaries, industrials and several onboard programs for airlines.

 

He reported entertainment news for Showtime, The Movie Channel and FLIX and produced field pieces for E! Entertainment Television, interviewing Anthony Hopkins, Michael J. Fox, Kenny Rogers and Joan Rivers. He produced pieces for The E! True Hollywood Story and Celebrity Profile.

 

Elliott hosted the national telecast of The 3 Tenors Concert live from Giants Stadium on July 20, 1996, which was repeated on PBS.

 

He appeared twice on The Gong Show on NBC in the mid ‘70s.

 

Radio

He is the recipient of one of broadcasting’s honors, the George Foster Peabody Award and two New York State Broadcasting Awards.

 

He can now be heard every weekend on 96.3 FM WQXR in New York and on WQXR.com. This is the only full time classical radio station in New York City and it’s owned by The New York Times.

 

During 1995 Elliott co-hosted the nationally syndicated talk show, The Late Late Radio Show with Tom Snyder and Elliott Forrest, for the CBS Radio Network.  The show featured one-on-one celebrity interviews and nightly conversations between Tom and Elliott.  As for his part of the show, Elliott interviewed hundreds of people included Christopher Reeve, Richard Pryor, John Cleese, Shirley MacLaine, Peter Arnett, Bill Mahar, Larry King, Geraldo Rivera, Garrison Keillor, Garry Shandling, Elvis Costello, Peter Ustinov, members of the rock groups The Moody Blues, Chicago, Fleetwood Mac, among others.  On working with Mr. Snyder, Elliott considers it a high point in his career “to have talked over the news events of the day and the everyday events of life with one of this country’s legendary broadcasters.”

 

From 1986 to 1993, Elliott was morning drive-time host on WNCN-FM, a New York City station.  He broadcast special events from The United Nations and Carnegie Hall (co-hosting with Peter Jennings).

 

In an exclusive arrangement with BMG, Elliott produced and hosted The RCA Victor Stage and Screen Hour. The weekly audio program was heard via DIRECTV in homes across the country.

 

His first radio job was in his hometown of Midland, Texas.  He went on to work at Kansas City’s KXTR-FM, (where he was also Program Director); WEVD, NY; and WKJY, Long Island.

 

Producer

Elliott has his own production company, Forrest Productions, LLC. He acquired the radio rights to A&E’s signature television series, Biography® and produces Biography® for Radio which is now heard across the US and Canada.

 

Along with partner, Broadway Theater producer Don Frantz, Elliott is co-producing WALKIN' BROADWAYä the first audio-walking tour of Broadway and Times Square. Participants stroll from theater to theater and hear stories from Broadway artists and music from shows.

 

Stage

In April of 1997, Elliott hosted Bach at The Beacon, the first Bach Festival in New York City. The program, at the historic Beacon Theater on Broadway, featured the first ever on-stage performance of Wendy Carlos (Switched on Bach) and jazz musician Jacques Loussier.

 

Elliott appeared twice on stage doing comedy at Carnegie Hall with composer and humorist Peter Schickele.  Elliott is featured with Professor Schickele on the Telarc recording  PDQ Bach: WTWP - Classical Talkity Talk Radio,  which won the Grammy Award for best Comedy Album of the Year.

 

Elliott also appeared in the title role of Stravinsky’s “The Soldier’s Tale” at the Kaye Playhouse, conducted by Robert Craft.

 

Before the bulk of his broadcasting career, Elliott directed and acted in plays and comedy groups in New York, Kansas City and Texas.

 

 

 

Originally from Texas, Elliott received a Bachelor of Arts in Drama from the University of Texas in Austin.  He lives just outside New York City with his wife, Kara Sheridan.  They have two children. He is a board member of The Creative Coalition.

 

June 2003

exquisite music - superbly performed