These are actually two separate events, but both are happening at The Sorting Room at The Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts and both represent great opportunities to hear new music. Songwriters: The Next Generation is on Wednesday night and A Little New Music: An Evening of New Musical Theater is on Thursday night.
Songwriters: The Next Generation is an ASCAP Foundation and ASCAP Urban Department event. So this is going to reflect a broad range of song styles and compositions. This evening will have the songwriters perform their songs themselves. They include Joelle James, Kam Parker and Alex Vickery. Hosting the evening is Kosine.
Thursday night multiple up-n-coming composers of musical theatre will be showcased. Hosted by Carly Hughes (Chicago) and Michael Leon-Wooley (Little Shop of Horrors), the composers being showcased include Amy Engelhardt (Bastard Jones), Claire Partin (Sky Mall: The Musical) & Angela Parrish (ASCAP’s Abe Oleman Scholarship Award for 2017), Terry Delsing & Brian Dykstra (Crazy Make Crazy), Carner & Gregor (Unlock’d), Jessica Fleitman & Rick Bassett (The Average Sized-Mermaid), Gregory Nabours (Down to the Darkness), Thomson & Desmon (Pump Up the Volume), Noemi de la Puente & David Davila (Manuel vs. The Statue of Liberty), Ari Afsar & Lauren Gunderson and Julian Hornik (Tenn.) Nabours also serves as Musical Director.
Performing these new compositions will be Ari Afsar ( Eliza in Hamilton in Chicago), Matthew Santos (Superstar by Lupe Fiasco), Jason Michael Snow (Book of Mormon), Payson Lewis (NBC’s The Sing-Off), Leah Lewis (YouTube RED’s Sing It!), Rhett George (Wicked), Sylvia MacCalla (Rent), Kenna Ramsey (Caroline, Or Change), Amy Engelhardt (the Bobs), Natalia Vivino (Children of Eden), Daniel Bellusci (Winner of Stage Star 2017), Matt Merchant (Parade), Benai Boyd (Violet), Kelley Dorney (Nice Work If You can Get It), Nohely Quiroz (Rockwell’s UMPO series: Clueless), and AJ Rafael (Red Roses EP).
You never know if the songs you hear on either of these nights will soon be top 40 hits or beloved songs in the hottest show on Broadway. But if you see either of these evenings you’ll be able to say, “I was there when…”