Boston, MA. 21ºC
Jason Robert Brown wrote about the show:
I arrived in New York when I was twenty years old, and I spent my first five years in Manhattan working as a rehearsal pianist, arranger, conductor, vocal coach, piano bar entertainer, orchestrator, and just about anything else that would pay me while I was trying to establish myself as a composer. I'd write songs for anything and anyone, and after a while I had quite a big pile of music written for various people and various projects. I met a wonderful young director named Daisy Prince, and she and I took this vast and unwieldy collection of material and began to shape it into a revue. By the time "Songs for a New World" opened at the WPA Theater in October 1995, we'd culled the sixteen songs that best suited our narrative purposes and our four exceptional singers. Four of those songs are included here: "Stars and the Moon" is without question my most popular and performed song, and I originally wrote it for a cabaret night at a summer stock theater in North Adams, Massachusetts; since its debut in 1991, its interpreters have included some of my favorite singers in the world, such as Karen Akers, Ann Hampton Callaway, Betty Buckley, and the magnificent Audra McDonald, who recorded it on her first album. "I'm Not Afraid of Anything" is the oldest song in this collection, having been written in 1990 for a cabaret night in Weston, Vermont. "Just One Step," the story of a fed-up Upper East Side matron, was written specifically to showcase Laurie Beechman, who premiered it in Toronto; this book marks the song's first commercial publication. Finally, "Hear My Song" is the finale of the show, and it was originally written for Sally Mayes to sing at an AIDS benefit in New York. It's a song that gets done all the time at benefits and special events, and I'm very proud of this song's ability to inspire hope and strength within the performers and audiences who share it.
Jason Robert Brown wrote about the show:
I arrived in New York when I was twenty years old, and I spent my first five years in Manhattan working as a rehearsal pianist, arranger, conductor, vocal coach, piano bar entertainer, orchestrator, and just about anything else that would pay me while I was trying to establish myself as a composer. I'd write songs for anything and anyone, and after a while I had quite a big pile of music written for various people and various projects. I met a wonderful young director named Daisy Prince, and she and I took this vast and unwieldy collection of material and began to shape it into a revue. By the time "Songs for a New World" opened at the WPA Theater in October 1995, we'd culled the sixteen songs that best suited our narrative purposes and our four exceptional singers. Four of those songs are included here: "Stars and the Moon" is without question my most popular and performed song, and I originally wrote it for a cabaret night at a summer stock theater in North Adams, Massachusetts; since its debut in 1991, its interpreters have included some of my favorite singers in the world, such as Karen Akers, Ann Hampton Callaway, Betty Buckley, and the magnificent Audra McDonald, who recorded it on her first album. "I'm Not Afraid of Anything" is the oldest song in this collection, having been written in 1990 for a cabaret night in Weston, Vermont. "Just One Step," the story of a fed-up Upper East Side matron, was written specifically to showcase Laurie Beechman, who premiered it in Toronto; this book marks the song's first commercial publication. Finally, "Hear My Song" is the finale of the show, and it was originally written for Sally Mayes to sing at an AIDS benefit in New York. It's a song that gets done all the time at benefits and special events, and I'm very proud of this song's ability to inspire hope and strength within the performers and audiences who share it.
No comments:
Post a Comment