Both lead actors play two roles in the show. Act One depicts painter George Seurat’s intense mission to finish his masterpiece A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte. His muse and mistress is Dot. In Act Two, which takes place one hundred years later, a descendant of Seurat’s, also named George, is giving the world premiere of one of his works. Joining him for that premiere is his grandmother, Marie, who claims to be Seurat’s daughter and that her mother is the woman featured prominently at the front of his painting.

This is Alabado’s first time in a Sondheim musical. She’s appeared on Broadway in Mean Girls, American Idiot and American Psycho. On tour she’s also appeared in Spring Awakening and Evita.

Earlier this week I spoke via Zoom with Alabado about the dual roles she’s playing, specific lyrics of Sondheim’s found in the song Move On and about her experiences working with David Bowie on the musical Lazarus. What follows are excerpts from our conversation that have been edited for length and clarity. To see the full interview, please go to our YouTube channel.

As Dot you sing in Move On, “Anything you do, let it come from you. Then it will be new. Give us more to see.” How does playing this role allow you to see more of yourself as an actor and a singer?

This is my first time, in my 15 years of doing this professionally, of being able to tackle Sondheim. Which didn’t come out of not wanting to, but rather just the way that my career has gone. It just has never taken me in the path of Sondheim.

Also, I am a Mexican Lebanese woman. I think that, in the last five years maybe, this is the first time that we’ve seen different types being cast in these beautiful, huge Sondheim shows that possibly didn’t have that kind of accessibility for somebody like me in the past. So I feel very privileged and honored to be tackling this work. 

I didn’t know Sunday in the Park very well. Every time I sing those lyrics in Move On I learn and find something new in them. I feel like I am changing as an actor, as a singer, as a performer with the incredible messages that Dot is trying to relay to George throughout the piece and the messages that Sondheim and James Lapine are trying to give us as the artists interpreting them. It’s been very moving for me.

When you’re tackling the work of Stephen Sondheim it’s obviously different than tackling Mean Girls. Not to belittle Mean Girls, but they don’t aspire to be the same thing at all.

What’s great about musical theater is we have so many different types of musicals. Sondheim is, as we all know, a complete genius in the art form – possibly the greatest musical theater composer creator that has and will ever have lived and touched all of us with his incredible work. I think tackling this is completely different than tackling Mean Girls.

I did American Idiot and Spring Awakening, all these different types of musicals. There is a density of this material that requires a different piece of you. You have to give yourself to it differently. Also, my brain has to activate in a certain way that takes a lot of focus as an actor as well. Not that I’m not focusing in those other shows, but this is a little bit of a different muscle.

I looked at an interview that your director, Sarna Lapine, gave to The Interval New York in 2017 when this production appeared on Broadway with Jake Gyllenhaal and Annaleigh Ashford. She was talking about the arc of the show as, “The mistress is the muse in Act One and she becomes the teacher in Act Two.” Did you and Sarna have any conversations about that way of looking at these two women that you’re playing?

Not in particular like that. But one of the things that we and Graham have always been in conversation about is what does Dot get from George? What does George learn from Dot? What does Marie teach George act two? What does George teach Marie in turn? How are all of these people still helping each other?

Dot and George have a harder time because they both want different things that Dot knows deep down she can never get from him and he can never get from her. [That’s] why it’s such a heartbreak what ends up happening for George and Dot. Me and Sarna had many conversations about the wisdom which Marie gives to second act George and where that comes from. It comes from the song Children and Art. It’s this idea that all we can do is learn the lessons from the people that we have passed, that have passed through us, that have come through us. 

Do you think that her approach might be different as a woman and that she may have brought different resonance, different tones, different ways of depicting and telling this story?

Yes, absolutely. Sarna saw the original when she was eight years old. She talks about that. She talks about how deeply important this piece is to her, to her family, but really her personally. 

What’s beautiful about reviving shows or trying them in different ways is that the show originally was interpreted so specifically by these two people that created it. The beautiful lesson that we all get to take when we revive or try shows again later on is that this gift was given to us, which is the original interpretation. [That] also involved Bernadette and Mandy. Everything about the original was crafted with this group of people so specifically. Then our job as interpretive artists is to find our way and new ways into it. How is the world different? How are we different? How do we interpret art differently? I can’t wait to see what Sunday in the Park with George interpreted in 2050 would be.

But as a woman with a woman director, which I don’t get to do very often either, we’ve had incredibly deep, wonderful conversations. Me, Sarna and Graham have really been so connected in this process. I think that Sarna, interpreting it through the eyes and lens of a woman, has given us wonderful new ways to see things and try things.

She’s given you new things to see. You get to do things in a new way. You’re living out what Sondheim wrote, aren’t you?

Right because that’s all we can do as artists.

I read an interview that Bernadette Peters gave thirty years after Sunday in the Park with George. She was talking about singing Move On and she said that it, “got to be like meditating. It was so healing and uplifting.” What do you experience when you get to that moment in the show?

The first couple of times we sang it I could not help but sob through it because it’s just cathartic. It’s oddly a release, but it’s a release in the most peaceful way, which is why the song to me is so incredible. The wisdom that is given to us in those lyrics, and that Dot gets to impart on George, is so moving. It’s what all of us desperately need to hear as actors, artists, creators. It’s, I agree, a meditation, a self-healing moment for me personally, for Dot or George, for Graham, for our company, for the audience. And it feels like this big moment of what we all need to hear right now. So I find it to be very healing in that way.

I do want to ask you about one new musical that you did, because I am a massive fan of another genius, a gentleman we used to have on this planet called David Bowie. What was the process like of working on Lazarus with, in and around David Bowie? 

That’s a for a whole other hour of talking. But in short, it was one of the most unexpected, incredible things I’ve ever gotten to do in my life. When I was thinking I was going to do musical theater for a living, did I think I would get to work closely with a legend like that? The whole thing from start to finish was magical and zany and so unexpected and just so cool.

I started my career doing more rock musicals. So I was in that world. But then being able to find this with David and with the creators of Lazarus, with Ivo van Hove the director, what an opportunity and memories that I will never, ever lose because he was such a good person. And he loves musicals, which I didn’t really know about David until we were working on it. He was so grateful that we were all doing it. Everything he wanted was to write a musical and to have it performed. So it was just really important to him and, in turn, important to us.

We recorded the cast album on the day that he died. We didn’t know. It was a very interesting time. I hold it very dear to my heart in many, many ways.

I want to finish up our time by going one last time to Move On because it has my favorite lyric that I think has ever been written. “I chose and my world was shaken, so what. The choice may have been mistaken, the choosing was not.”

That’s my favorite lyric of the whole show.

Does that thinking play a part in how you move through your career, in your life, not only during Sunday in the Park with George, but for whatever else comes after that?

If anyone wants to know what it’s like to be an actor it’s that. Everything that we do feels like a little leap of faith. You never know what’s happening. I find that to be why my life is so rich and full of experiences and emotion. I could never be the person I am without having done this.

What we do is complicated. It can be very, very challenging, very hard. And it can also be really complicated to find levity in a business that sometimes can feel really difficult. I think that lesson in itself is why I love what I do so much. You do just have to choose. You have to take a leap.

You maybe made what could be interpreted as the wrong choice. But doing it is what was the right choice. All we can do is just keep going. I think that will always stay with me moving forward after this show, because that’s one of the hardest things I find as an actor is choosing and making choices and not being afraid of that. I think Dot is trying to teach us, and teach George in that moment, that just choosing and going forward is all we can do. We can’t know if it’s right or wrong, but all we can do is do it.

To see the full interview with Krystina Alabado, please go here.

Sunday in the Park with George continues at the Pasadena Playhouse through March 19th.

Main Photo: Krystina Alabado and Graham Phillips in Sunday in the Park with George (Photo by Jeff Lorch/Courtesy Pasadena Playhouse)

The post Krystina Alabado Moves on With Dot and Marie appeared first on Cultural Attaché.

Her sense of humor about it was something we discussed last week in a Zoom call. Parlato said, “If you see the list of the other artists I’m very certain that I am the most least-known artist of all of them. And I’m happy to be included. It’s just that feeling of being able to have that moment to honor this music and then be starstruck and to just look over. I don’t know how close you can get to the other artists.”

The other artists are Billie Eilish, Debbie Harry, Bettye LaVette, Seth MacFarlane, Brian Stokes Mitchell and Dianne Reeves. They will all perform with The Count Basie Orchestra with musical director Christian McBride and pianist John Beasley.

Though Parlato is not a household name the way other artists on this program are, she should be. She’s a two-time Grammy Award nominee for her albums Live in NYC (2013) and last year’s Flor. She has an understated approach to singing that draws a listener in almost immediately. She can easily go from singing from the Great American Songbook to singing a song by David Bowie (No Plan which is on Flor).

Her grandmother was the person who most influenced Parlato.

“She played a big role in playing these amazing jazz vocalists for me. Before I even knew what jazz was. It was just this sound of Ella and and Nancy and Frank and Peggy Lee.”

When asked if she’s concerned that our present-day culture is entirely too focused on the present and not the past, particularly as it relates to recording artists, she finds a reason to believe.

“I agree with you that often it takes a little more effort to seek out the art of any genre that isn’t alive anymore,” she offers. “To show how important [Sinatra and Lee] were in the lineage, look at the singers that are chosen to be a part of this show. Billie Eilish is one of them. She has stated her adoration for Peggy Lee and Frank Sinatra. So that’s a perfect example of someone who’s very young who can pay tribute and admire singers that she grew up with that have helped inform what she does. But it’s unique.”

For this concert Parlato will be singing two songs from the Sinatra and Antônio Carlos Jobim catalog. While she is definitely a fan of Sinatra’s, I believe she has a lot in common with Peggy Lee’s signing style. Lee said of her own vocal talents that what she did was “singing softly with feeling.” The comparison is not lost on Parlato.

“It’s interesting because I’ve heard different quotes from other artists. Not until you just mentioned the quote from her did I put it all together. That’s the way that I have been brought up being a vocalist. There’s something so powerful about this understatement and intimacy and kind of allowing people to feel all the different facets. It doesn’t have to be something obvious, it can be something that’s a little bit intriguing.”

It’s also the moments she chooses not to sing that are equally important to her.

“You’re totally right. That is equal, if not maybe more important; the space and the silence in-between the sound. I talk a lot about that when I teach. It’s like the yin and yang. It’s like these opposites that complement each other that make the other one even stronger. It’s an exciting place to be when you allow that space to sit and you get comfortable with it. And it’s a great metaphor for life to write, for meditating or just leaning in and accepting a situation and allowing it to be and feeling. Allowing whatever will come around to enhance that place that you’re in.”

Parlato has learned a lot from teachers like Ruth Price, Tierney Sutton and the late Barbara Morrison who called what Parlato does with her voice “an offering. It’s a gift, like, here you go.” As for the lessons learned from Sinatra and Lee, she is very quick to respond with one word.

“I think phrasing is everything. Singers like that really taught me to pay attention to not only the emotional story of the song, but what are we singing about. Barbara had us write out what are the lyrics about of the song that you’re singing. What’s a way that you can introduce this song and find your connection to it. That’s something that I can find much easier to do now in my forties than when I was a teenager. There was a disconnect, too. It was mostly about this more intellectual and technical sense of phrasing and rhythm. I think paying attention to the rhythm can be informed by the emotional story of the song. So what are you trying to say? How do we phrase based on the story?”

Last spring Parlato completed a recording with guitarist and singer Lionel Loueke. Their duo project will be released next year followed by a series of performances around the world. For now it’s the tribute to Sinatra and Lee followed by a tour in Europe in October and November.

But what if Sinatra was able to hear her sing? To hear her sing from some of the legend’s most celebrated albums? What would she like him to say?

“Oh, wow. That’s a cool question. I’m imagining him sitting in the box seat smoking at the show. I think if he said ‘Good job, kid’ I’d be good with that. If he said, ‘Let’s have a drink. Cheers!” that’d be good.

“In all seriousness, if he was able to find a glimpse, a sparkle that he had an influence and a connection to. I think that would be an enormous compliment. Somebody of that level just feeling that I am connected to the music. I would hope that he would appreciate artists finding their own voice, singing a song and telling their own story. So I would hope that he would hear me singing his exact arrangements and that he would hear that there’s a tradition there. But that there’s something fresh and a new story to tell. That I made it my own.”

To watch my full conversation with Gretchen Parlato, please go here.

For details on Gretchen Parlato’s tour schedule, please go here.

Main Photo: Gretchen Parlato (Photo by Lauren Desberg/Courtesy of the Artist)

The post Jazz Singer Gretchen Parlato Celebrates Sinatra and Peggy Lee appeared first on Cultural Attaché.

Not playing it safe has proven to be quite successful for Schneider. She is a 7-time Grammy Award winner. Her most recent album, Data Lords, not only earned her two of those trophies, but Schneider was also a Pulitzer Prize finalist. In its first half Data Lords examines tech companies and their control of our lives and information. Then second half allows for communion with nature. It’s a monumental work and one that she is only now able to support through live performances.

The Maria Schneider Orchestra starts a min-tour of the West Coast this weekend with appearances on Friday at Walt Disney Concert Hall; Stanford University on Saturday and Sonoma State University on Sunday.

Before we got into the themes of Data Lords, I first asked Schneider about something legendary bandleader Mary Lou Williams told Marian McPartland in 1964: “Anything you are shows up in your music. Jazz is whatever you are playing yourself, being yourself, letting your thoughts come through.” Exactly 50 years later Schneider told Ted Panken, in a Downbeat interview, that the biggest thing that inspired her about Gil Evans was “knowing him and seeing how devoted he was to being himself.” What point in your career did you realize that being yourself was pivotal in terms of being able to fully express who you were as an artist and who you were as a person?

I think that in life so many people struggle with the questions of who am I, am I forgetting how to express that? I think this is something that a lot of people struggle with when they’re young and maybe when they’re old and their entire life. When I worked with [composer/arranger] Gil [Evans] and when I worked with [pianist/composer] Bob Brookmeyer and when I was around people like [drummer] Mel Lewis and all the greats that there are, they all have that thing that is just identifiable and that it’s them. And I wondered how somebody found that and it was through studying with Bob Brookmeyer that I found it. 

Your music becomes you. It reveals you. You don’t say, “Oh, this is this because this is who I am.” Your music starts to reveal you to yourself. I would say that art helps you know yourself. It helps people find that thing in themselves that maybe eludes them for almost a lifetime. 

As Stephen Sondheim wrote in Sunday in the Park with George, it all starts with “a blank page.” How intimidating is that blank piece of paper before ideas start being added to it?

That is the process of writing: getting people to ask questions and to take risks and try things they don’t know how to do and dare to have it fail. I got the really great experience of working with David Bowie a few years ago and and he was so great because I was so scared and I was like, “Oh my god, David, what if it sucks? What if you just regret having come to me about this and singing with a big band?” And he just laughed. I’ll bet he had fear here and there, too, but it sure didn’t seem like it. He said “The amazing thing about music, the fantastic thing is that if you fail, if the plane crashes, we all walk away.” It really is true. We feel like we’re going to die if something creative we do isn’t good. It preceded this music on Data Lords, maybe almost all of it. And so that gave me courage to try crazy things and throw it all on the paper.

What role do your musicians – to whom you give enormous respective and attention in your concerts – play in realizing your compositions?

For me the thing of connecting to musicians and people playing my music – that energy feeding me is so important. I mean, it’s the reason I’m a jazz composer because my music isn’t completely formed and then they bring something to it. Then that makes me want to write something. So much of my music would not be my music without them. Not just because of the way they play it. I literally wouldn’t write what I’m writing without the ways in which they are like my limbs.

Not being able to tour behind Data Lords must have been frustrating. After its release and now that you have been able to perform that work live, what responses are you getting?

It was a bummer because I couldn’t sell CDs on the road and I always do that and we had a big promotional tour planned. Everything was canceled. As a matter of fact that’s what this tour is replacing. My band is only just geared up. Last week we played a full week in New York. It was the first time we’ve really done something other than a single gig last November and played it on a dock in DC for an hour in September. But other than that, we have not played. So we’re just getting back in the saddle again it.

It was really remarkable that Data Lords really hit home because people found themselves straddling both worlds that I’m talking about: the world of big data that we depend on, that you and I are speaking through. I didn’t even know what Zoom was prior to COVID. And then maintaining connection or trying to step away. That struck people. So I’m writing about awe walks like AWE, you know, going out and reconnecting with birds and nature and valuing what we lost. People really embraced the concept a lot.

I assume that your position on the Googles and Spotify companies of the world has been supported by other musicians.

Oh, yeah, and students – mostly students. When I go to colleges they just don’t know what to do. I have musicians all the time thank me. I’m like, “Why don’t you get behind the horse too? I can’t drag this corpse along by myself, you know?” It’s such a full-time job just being a musician and it seems so daunting and impossible to fight the tide, but the tide is unfair. The tide is about taking the value of our music and turning it away from being money into data for them. They’re giving something away, that a lot of times they don’t have the right to to be giving on their site – in exchange for getting the data.

I spent months writing one piece and then thousands and endless thousands rehearsing it and recording it. We’re talking a quarter million dollars to make Data Lords. Then somebody is sharing that for free? I’ve got a pretty small niche audience so I need to be able to set my own price so that I have a chance in making that money back so I can make the next record.

You have described your education as “largely self-taught. I studied scores and I watched the band rehearse.” In fifty or sixty years when up ‘n’ coming composers and arrangers are studying your scores, what would you like them to discover about your work?

I would hope it would be maybe broad picture things kind of like it was for me with Bob and Gil. I hope that whatever they find in my music might be different for different people. That it would inspire them, like Gil and Bob did, just to explore their own things. Because in the end I don’t want to sound like Bob. I don’t want to sound like Gil. I wanted to figure out who Maria is and I think that’s the beauty in music and art; everybody trying to find out who they are. If there are a few little nuggets here and there that they find in my music that helps them get there, go for it.

For tickets to any of the three concerts click on the link in the third paragraph. To purchase DATA LORDS click on the link in the second paragraph.

Main photo: Maria Schneider (Photo by Greg Helgeson/Courtesy of the artist)

The post Maria Schneider Doesn’t Play It Safe appeared first on Cultural Attaché.

This weekend I have a great mix of classical music, jazz, plays and a new musical revue celebrating composer Jerry Herman (Hello, Dolly!). Once you catch up on my reminders you can add opera and musicals to the list!

So let’s get right to it. Here are the Best Bets at Home: January 8th – January 10th:

CLASSICAL MUSIC: Close Quarters #5 – Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra – Available Now

LACO continues their series of unique films that include performances of chamber music works. In Close Quarters #5, the music of Juan Pablo Contreras, Jimmy López and Jessie Montgomery is performed. Surrounding the performances is the story of a young woman on New Year’s Eve who finds herself alone after leaving a party and unsure of how she’s going to get home.

Contreras, whose work Pueblos Mágicos is the last piece performed in the film, curated the program. López’s Ccantu for solo piano opens the film. Montgomery’s Voodoo Dolls is between the two. All three pieces are terrific. I took particular joy in Pueblos Mágicos.

James Darrah directed the 42-minute film. The script was written by Christopher Oscar Peña and beautifully captures that emotional roller coaster that one experiences when left alone and is having to find acceptance and strength to move beyond. Note that there is strong language in the film.

AUDIO PLAY: The Nomad Project – Coeurage Ensemble – Available Now

Los Angeles-based Coeurage Ensemble has launched a very interesting series called The Nomad Project. The project consists of 10 stories based in Los Angeles and runs approximately 10-12 minutes.

Each of the stories is written to reflect a specific area of the city. By specific I mean down to GPS coordinates. This allows listeners to either listen from the comfort of their home or travel to those coordinates to hear the stories played out. Amongst the locations are Hollywood Boulevard & Western Avenue; the Walt Disney Concert Hall; outside the Faultline Bar; Sun Valley and more.

The playwrights who have created audio plays for The Nomad Project are Boni B. Alvarez, Kate Bailey, Mark Brown, Meghan Brown, June Carryl, Aaron Fullerton, Tom Jacobson, Ann Kimbrough, Roger Q. Mason, Shahrook Oomer and Yael Zinkow.

There’s no cost to listen to these audio plays. Donations, of course, are always welcomed.

MUSICAL: Closer Than Ever – MNM Theatre Company – Now – January 10th

When Closer Than Ever opened in 1989 at the Cherry Lane Theatre, it charmed critics and went on to be named the 1990 Outer Critics Circle Award Winner for Best New Off-Broadway Musical. The completely sung-through show features songs by Richard Maltby, Jr., and David Shire (Baby, Starting Here Starting Now).

Closer Than Ever examines adult life vis-a-vis songs about marriage, divorce and second marriages, mid-life crisis, growing old and more. Maltby and Shire based the songs on the lives of their friends.

Florida’s MNM Theatre Company has produced a streaming version of this musical that will be available through Sunday.  Aaron Bower, Johnbarry Green, Shelley Keelor and Elijah Word star. Jonathan Van Dyke directed.

Tickets are $20 and allow for 48 hours of streaming.

PLAY: Making Friends – IAMA Theatre Company – Now – January 18th

Seems like everyone is angry these days. Count amongst them Tom DeTrinis, who describes himself as a rage-aholic. In his one-man show, DeTrinis expunges some of that rage in very humorous was as he rants about transgressions from his childhood, his dislike of Rodgers & Hammerstein and particularly his disdain for New York City (rather ironic since he’s from NYC).

He portrays many of those who have offended him during this 67-minute show directed by Drew Droege. Note that this show contains adult material and language. Tickets start at $15 based on your ability to pay.

JAZZ: Chris Botti – SFJAZZ – January 8th – 8:00 PM EST/5:00 PM PST

This week’s Fridays at Five concert from SFJAZZ dates back almost exactly one year. On January 10th, 2020, trumpeter Chris Botti performed at the venue. That concert will be streamed only once at the time listed above.

Botti is a Grammy Award winner and best-selling artist who, in addition to his own albums, has collaborated with Joshua Bell, Tony Bennett, Michael Bublé, Lady Gaga, Yo-Yo Ma, Joni Mitchell, Paul Simon, Sting, Barbra Streisand and more.

To view this concert you must have either a monthly membership ($5) or an annual membership ($60).

CLASSICAL MUSIC: Teatro alla Scala Orchestra – January 9th – 2:00 PM EST/11:00 AM PST

The orchestra from Milan’s fabled La Scala has a streaming concert on Saturday. The program will feature performances of Johannes Brahms’ Symphony No. 3 in F major, Op. 90 and Antonin Dvorak’s Symphony No. 7 in D minor, Op. 70. Leading the orchestra is conductor Lorenzo Viotti.

The concert will be available for viewing on the Teatro alla Scala website, their YouTube channel and their Facebook page.

If you can’t see the concert as it happens, they usually remain available for a few days afterwards.

CLASSICAL MUSIC: Anne Akiko Meyers and Fabio Bidini – The Sorting Room Sessions at The Wallis – January 9th – 11:00 PM EST/8:00 PM PST

Violinist Anne Akiko Meyers and pianist Fabio Bidini team up for this intimate recital of music by French composers. On the program is Charles Gounod’s Ave Maria; Maurice Ravel’s Sonata No.2 in G Major and Jules Massenet’s Meditation from Thaïs.

Meyers has released over 30 albums. Her most recent recording is Estonian Lullaby which features the music of Arvo Pärt and was released earlier this year.

Italian pianist Bidini has released 13 albums and in addition to his performance career, teaches at Los Angeles’ Colburn School

Tickets are $25 and allow for 24 hours of streaming.

JAZZ: Exploring Billie’s Influence – 92nd Street Y – January 10th – 3:00 PM EST/12:00 PM PST

Grammy Award-winner Christian McBride hosts a conversation about the legendary Billie Holiday with Dee Dee Bridgewater, Dianne Reeves and Cassandra Wilson.

All three women have recorded albums as tributes to Lady Day. Let’s be honest, what female jazz singer can ignore the enormous impact Holiday had on all singers?

Will there be any singing? It doesn’t appear so from the website, but given the enormous talent on stage, this will be a riveting conversation with our without performances.

Tickets are $15.

JAZZ: Neal Caine Quartet – Smalls Live – January 10th – 5:00 PM EST/2:00 PM PST and 7:00 PM EST/4:00 PM PST

Jazz bassist Neal Caine is not only one of jazz music’s finest bass players, he’s also one of its most in-demand. Caine has performed and/or recorded with Jon Batiste and Stay Human; Brian Blade; Betty Carter; Harry Connick, Jr. Big Band; Benny Green; Dr. John; Elvin Jones Jazz Machine; Diana Krall, Branford Marsalis; Delfeayo Marsalis Quintet; Ellis Marsalis Trio; Wynton Marsalis;

If you haven’t heard his 2005 album Backstabber’s Ball, you should check it out.

Joining him for these two sets at New York’s Smalls are Donald Edwards on drums; Jerry Weldon on tenor sax and Anthony Wonsey on piano.

If you can afford to make a “reservation” for either performance, those funds go to the venue and the musicians. Otherwise, you can find the performances streaming live on Small’s website.

CLASSICAL MUSIC: Piano Sonata by Philip Glass – CAP UCLA – January 10th – 6:00 PM EST/3:00 PM PST

The world premiere of composer Philip Glass‘ first piano sonata took place in 2019 in Germany. The piece was performed by pianist Maki Namekawa who asked the composer to write the sonata for her.

She returns to the work in this special filmed performance that was recorded live in Austria for CAP UCLA.

The sonata came into being after a conversation Namekawa and her husband, Dennis Russell Davies, had with the composer in the back of a restaurant in 2017.

Zachary Woolfe, in his New York Times review of the sonata’s first American performance by Namekawa in 2019, said, “For all the work’s switches of mood — between major and minor, churning and calm — the stakes feel low, though not unagreeably. Even when it’s headlong, as in the chugga-chugga perpetual motion of the third movement, the work is light, even superficial, a revue of Glassian riffs that’s pleasant and passing. While it’s imposing, at nearly 30 minutes, the sonata feels larky.”

MUSICAL: You I Like, A Musical Celebration Of Jerry Herman – Pasadena Playhouse/PlayhouseLive – January 10th – February 7th

Jerry Herman was the Tony Award-winning composer of such musicals as Hello, Dolly!, Mame, Mack and Mabel and La Cage aux Folles. He passed away in late 2019. This revue of his music was created by Andy Einhorn and had its first performance at New York’s 92nd Street Y early last year. Einhorn has reworked the show and it was filmed by Pasadena Playhouse for their Playhouse Live programming.

Starring in You I Like are Ashley Blanchet (Frozen), Nick Christopher (Hamilton), Olivier Award-winner Lesli Margherita (Matilda The Musical), Andrea Ross (The Sound of Music) and Ryan Vona (Once). Einhorn serves as music director and our guide through the show. (Next week look for my interview with Einhorn!)

Songs from all those musicals listed above are in the show as are some rarer songs from his early work like Parade and Milk and Honey. There are also songs from his lesser-known musicals such as The Grand Tour.

On the virtual opening night there will be a Q&A with Bernadette Peters (who appeared in the recently revival of Hello, Dolly! and also Mack and Mabel) and David Hyde Pierce (also in Hello, Dolly!) with Einhorn and Pasadena Playhouse’s Danny Feldman.

Tickets are $29.99 to watch the virtual opening. All other viewings will be $24.99.

That’s my list of the Best Bets at Home: January 8th – January 10th. But, of course, there are a few reminders:

David Bowie fans will not want to miss his musical Lazarus, which is being made available for three performances this weekend from DiceFM. For full details go to my preview here.

New York’s 9th annual Prototype Festival launches this weekend with an intriguing program of new works. My preview has full details.

The Public Theater’s Under the Radar Festival has begun and I have a full rundown of the programming available.

The operas available this weekend from the Metropolitan Opera from this week’s Epic Rivalries theme. They are Cavalleria Rusticana by Pietro Mascagni and Pagliacci by Ruggero Leoncavallo on Friday; Gaetano Donizetti’s Maria Stuarda on Saturday and Giuseppe Verdi’s Il Trovatore on Sunday. You can find full details here.

Here’s to taking a break, enjoying some great performances and recharging ourselves!

Enjoy the Best Bets at Home: January 8th – January 10th and enjoy your weekend.

Photo: Lesli Margherita, Andrea Ross, Ryan Vona, Nicholas Christopher, Ashley Blanchet, and Andy Einhorn in You I Like: A Musical Celebration of Jerry Herman (Photo by Jeff Lorch/Courtesy Playhouse Live)

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The first is Lazarus, the musical Bowie created that was inspired by the novel The Man Who Fell to Earth by Walter Trevis. The musical had its world premiere at the New York Theatre Workshop in late 2015. It immediately sold out and was running at the time of Bowie’s death. If the title sounds familiar, it is the same story that inspired Nicolas Roeg’s 1976 in which Bowie starred.

Dice.fm is making a film of the British production available for only three showings this weekend.

The film revolved around Newton who is an alien that arrives on earth seeking a solution to the lack of water on his planet. In Lazarus, considered a sequel to the film and the novel, finds Newton, 40 years later, living in a penthouse in New York, but not having much of a life. His new assistant is not only finding herself falling for Newton, but also taking on the personality of Mary Lou, the earthling who fell in love with him in the movie. Things get complicated by the arrival of a young muse who knows exactly who Newton is and promises to return him to his planet.

Irish playwright Enda Walsh collaborated with Bowie on the book. He’s the playwright of the musical Once, the stunning play Misterman (which featured an absolutely staggering performance by Cillian Murphy) and the films Disco Pigs and Hunger.

Bowie uses many of his classic songs in Lazarus including “Heroes,” “All the Young Dudes,” “Life on Mars,” “Absolute Beginners” and “The Man Who Fell to Earth.” The title song, found on his album Blackstar is in the show as are three other new songs.

Michael C. Hall (Dexter), who played Newton in New York, stars in this film. He is joined by Amy Lennox as Newton’s assistant and Sophia Anne Caruso as the young woman. Ivo van Hove (director of the new revival of West Side Story that opened last year) directed the production.

Here’s the schedule (and there’s no on-demand viewing):

January 8th (Bowie’s 74th birthday): US & Canada – 6pm PST / 9pm EST; Australia & New Zealand – 7pm AEDT ; UK & Ireland – 7pm GMT  and Europe – 8pm CET 

January 9th: US & Canada – 6pm PST / 9pm EST; Australia & New Zealand – 7pm AEDT ; UK & Ireland – 7pm GMT  and Europe – 8pm CET 

January 10th (5th anniversary of his death): US & Canada – 1pm PST / 4pm EST; Australia & New Zealand – 3pm AEDT ; UK & Ireland – 3pm GMT  and Europe – 4pm CET 

Tickets are $21.50 in the United States. Each date listed above is a link to purchasing tickets for that specific showing.

If you want to just hear Bowie’s music without the structure of a musical, you can watch A Bowie Celebration which becomes available on SATURDAY, JANUARY 9th at 9:00 PM EST/6:00 PM PST.

Amongst the artists performing in this concert are Ian Astbury (The Cult), William Corgan (The Smashing Pumpkins), Andra Day, Duran Duran, Perry Farrell (Jane’s Addiction), Peter Frampton, Macy Gray, Michael C. Hall (Lazarus), Lena Hall (Hedwig and the Angry Inch), Gary Oldman, Trent Reznor (Nine Inch Nails), Gavin Rossdale (Bush), David Sanborn and a wide array of musicians who at one point in their careers were members of Bowie’s band. This includes Omar Hakim, Tim Lefebvre, Carmine Rojas, Catherine Russell, Charlie Sexton and Tony Visconti.

Tickets are $25 (with various package deals including merchandise available at higher prices). Tickets allow you to stream the show for 24 hours, but it is only available just for one day.

Photo: David Bowie (Courtesy DavidBowie.com)

UPDATE: Due to technical issues, A Bowie Celebration has been delayed by 24 hours and will now start on Saturday, January 9th as per the updated information above.

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Meza has released five albums: Skylark, Retrato, Prisma, Traces and her most recent is Ámbar. Critics from the New York Times, Downbeat Magazine and others have praised Meza. She is an artist who carefully selects the songs she wants to cover and on this new album she has expanded more substantially into songwriting.

Last week I spoke by phone with Meza who was, at the time, in Chile. Though born there, she lives in New York City. During our conversation we discussed some of the themes that are circling in and around the songs on Ámbar. Here are excerpts from that conversation that have been edited for length and clarity.

The title track for your album was inspired by the death of your grandfather and your inability to get there for his funeral. How did writing that song allow you to have some healing?

This song dates back to my first year in New York. It’s one of those songs that I ended up realizing it’s worth kind of later on. When I was writing it, it was a little bit out of that grief. I remember crying while I was writing. But then after this process of creation, you end up with almost the opposite feeling. I ended up feeling I was connected with my lost one. I had done something to communicate with his spirit and eventually something beautiful had come out of that really difficult moment. I remember also that was my first realization of that power of music that has often been my guiding light in many scenarios in my life.

Do you find yourself celebrating him when you perform the song in concert?

I guess I go through the same experience. I also relive that pain and that feeling of missing someone, but after the song ends, I feel renewed. I think that’s the beauty of music – you are not trying to suppress any feelings.

You cover the David Bowie/Pat Metheny song This Is Not America on the album. Why that song and why now?

That was one of the last songs we arranged for the album. I had the experience of meeting Pat Metheny who has been an influence for my whole life. This song ended up coming serendipitously and it just clicked. I heard it and I was “This is the song that was missing.” We had to put this out because I felt the need to speak up.

We are experiencing the harm of a divisive and intolerant and non-uniting group of people in power. Injustices and how dangerous some policies your representatives are putting out there and they are affecting the whole spectrum of society. Every time something horrible happened, this song resonated.

You are big fan of Milton Nascimento and have included his Milagres dos Peixe on this album. His landmark 1973 album was censored in his native Brazil. Was the inclusion of this song part of a bigger comment you were making?

I would say so. Honestly it wasn’t premeditated. A few songs contain political messages and they all had a thread of this same idea of acknowledging something we are all experience as a society. When Milton is talking about how children no longer see the sun rising or how a flower grows, he’s also criticizing something that is global – the disconnection of humanity from nature and how detrimental that is for us as a whole. There is an intention on each of these songs to talk about things I care about and our experience as human beings today.

One of your major influences is Chilean singer/songwriter Victor Jara – an artist who was not just censored, but tortured and killed by Augusto Pinochet’s government. Does he inspire you not just as a musician but also to speak out?

Oh absolutely. Most Latin American musicians I admire, they all spoke out in their times. Someone like Milton or Mercedes Sosa, they were making a mark and they were always in touch with that message of liberation more than anything. As you know, Latin America is a place that has experienced a lot of oppression. Every country has its own story. Most musicians you listen to remember those stories.

Elvis Costello once said, “Can a mere song change a people’s minds? I doubt that it is so. But a song can infiltrate your heart and the heart may change your mind.” Do you agree and how important is infiltrating an audience’s hearts for you?

That’s such a beautiful quote. It’s an interesting question, too. There’s that balance between putting out a message that’s almost personal you know. It’s just speaking from your own heart something that is tickling to come out. With no other intention rather than just materializing and putting that emotion, that feeling, that vision out there; to be able to observe it yourself. But then when that is shared, when it is pure and honest, it will resonate the same way with other people. You will eventually be able to put that art, that message, into other people’s hearts and create and they will create their own landscape of emotions.

Photo of Camila Meza by Chris Drukker/Courtesy of Red Cat Publicity

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2004 was a pivotal year for singer Catherine Russell. As one of David Bowie’s regular back-up singers, she was accustomed to life on the road. When he stopped touring, she asked, “Now what?” With careful guidance, thoughtful consideration and an opportunity to use a recording studio in Chicago, she made the choice to record her first solo album.

Sixteen years later and with six more albums re-leased, she will be celebrating music old and new when she performs Saturday night at The Broad Stage in Santa Monica.

Russell sings jazz and blues and she loves to bring attention on her recordings to songs that aren’t well-known. Her most recent album, Alone Together, finds her singing such classic songs as I Only Have Eyes for You and Is You Is or Is You Ain’t My Baby. They are mixed with lesser known songs like He May Be Your Dog But He’s Wearing My Collar and When Did You Leave Heaven.

Last week I spoke by phone with Russell about life not just as a singer, but as a bandleader. Here are edited excerpts from that conversation.

When you look back to the decision you made in 2004, do you now wonder what took so long?

I had and have a very good career as a backup singer and worked with wonderful singers, but it was the right time. I was not looking to be a solo artist and bandleader. But I was convinced that was the thing that I had not done. 

What have you learned that’s been most important to you about who you are as a singer in those 16 years?

It’s a combination of things. The singing part is not separate from the growth as a bandleader and being comfortable on the stage and making the transition to the center of attention and having my name on the ticket. It’s a combination of what that role entails. It’s not just singing. It’s really personal growth into the role.

What’s been the hardest part of that transition?

I didn’t see myself in that role. That isn’t what I had imagined – making all the decisions, running the band. When you are the leader, everything is up to me: how I run the show, how I put it together, the length of the show, the material, the flow, how I will talk to the audience telling them about the tunes. That’s all up to me.

When you do an album or a concert with songs sung by other artists for years, now do you approach those songs without letting the history of previous performances hang over you?

It is the story you are telling. The lyric speaks for itself. If the song is well-written, that speaks for itself. You keep the song alive by expressing yourself through it. A lot of the songs I pick are not as well known as others. There will be 50-60% of the show where people will tell me they’ve never heard the song before. I mix it up.

He May Be Your Dog… is a song recorded by Rosa Henderson. What stood out to you about these lyrics that made you say, “That’s a song I have to record?”

I like funny material. I like the material of early blues women. That’s a category I look into because the songs are well-written. It adds some levity to the show. The early blues tunes are picked for those purposes. To lighten up the vibe. Just like life we don’t stay in one mood. We like to react to different things. 

Bettye LaVette told me that Billy Strayhorn’s Lush Life is a song that required more work than any other song. What are the songs that challenge you in equally profound ways?

Well Lush Life is one that I don’t include because it is a very dense serious tune. I’ll pick something like Abbey Lincoln recorded a song called No More. She recorded that on her first album. There are songs written in the 1950s I’ll include because they are harmonically complex.  It takes your ear on a journey with different chord changes. I like to challenge myself that way.

Billie Holiday once said, “I hate straight singing. I have to change a tune to my own way of doing it. That’s all I know.” Do you agree with her and is there any other way to sing?

She may be referring to molding a melody to how she wanted it because she had a way of, if you want to know what the melody of the tune is, often times she is not going to be doing that. I think she was absolutely groundbreaking in how she molded a melody to her liking and to her phrasing. That I think may be what she’s talking about.

I have to, of course, when I’m learning a song, find my own rhythm and my own way of expressing it. But I do like to know what the melody is and then see how I want to work with it as the song progresses.

In January there was a post on your Facebook account discussing a week where you sang Bowie at The Cutting Room, sang with a vocal trio and then participated in Jazz Congress 2020. How important is it for you as an artist not to be pigeon-holed as doing just one thing?

People can pigeon-hole me if they like, but I like doing things I enjoy doing. It’s fun to rock out and I was a big fan of David Bowie’s music long before I worked with him. I love the fact that we are still paying tribute to David Bowie and I’m doing it with people who worked with him.

I like rock’n’ roll, I like classic rock as much as jazz, blues, classic country, classical music. You may find me in very opposing musical situations. Of course, I have to make a living and jazz is a great way to do that for me. I love the music and the musicians I work with.  I’m glad that’s the category I’m in. I love jazz.

Photos of Catherine Russell courtesy of the artist.

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Glass has composed two previous symphonies inspired by the other Bowie/Eno collaborations. His first symphony in 1992 was inspired by Low. 

His 4th symphony in 1996 was inspired by Heroes.

The Glass work is the second half of the program. Opening the concerts is Tumblebird Contrails by Gabriella Smith. That will be followed by Adams’s Grand Pianola Music. That work received equal parts rapturous praise and intense condemnation when it first premiered in 1982. Since then it’s reputation has grown considerably.

Grand Pianola Music is a three-part composition that finds Parts 1A and 1B played one after the other without pause. That is followed by the third section called On the Great Divide. It is a large scale work that calls for two pianists (Marc-André Hamelin and Orli Shaham), an organist (James McVinnie), a vocalist (Angélique Kidjo) and a trio of singers (Zanaida Robles and Holly Sedillos – sopranos; Kristen Toedtman – mezzo-soprano).

This is one of the most exciting concerts early in 2019 and one not-to-be-missed.

The night before the first of these concerts, Marc-André Hamelin will be performing the Dvorak Piano Quintet #2 in A Major with members of the LA Phil in a concert that also includes Dvorak’s String Quartet #13 and Penderecki’s Duo Concertante for violin e contrabasso.

Check back for our interview with Hamelin about all the work he’s doing this week at the Walt Disney Concert Hall.

Image of Philip Glass courtesy of PhilipGlass.com

Lodger Album cover courtesy of DavidBowie.com

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Laurie Anderson: All Things I Lost in the Flood – The Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts

April 20

Performance artist Laurie Anderson brings his one-woman show to the Wallis Annenberg Center as part of the Library Foundation of Los Angeles’ ALOUD Present Program. During the course of the evening Anderson will take the audience through the trials, tribulations and successes and failures behind many of her creative endeavors through the years.

In addition to this appearance, Anderson has just released a new CD entitled Landfall. On the recording she collaborates with the Kronos Quartet.

Complexions Contemporary Ballet – Dorothy Chandler Pavilion

April 20-22

This two part program begins with a brand new work called Bach 25. It not only features the work of Johann Sebastian Bach, but in these performances in Los Angeles, the company will be joined by Complexions co-founder Desmond Richardson.  The second part of the program is Stardust a 43-minute “Ballet Tribute to David Bowie.” Both works were choreographed by Dwight Rhoden. We spoke to Rhoden about Bowie, Richardson and the work of Complexions. You can read that interview here.

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre – Segerstrom Hall

April 20-22

Nine different works will be performed by the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre during their shows at the Segerstrom Hall in Costa Mesa. Amongst them are Stack-Up, Mass, Ella and In/Side. The choreographers represented include Alvin Ailey, Robert Battle, Talley Beatty, Twyla Tharp and Billy Wilson. The music includes works by David Byrne, Ella Fitzgerald, Earth Wind and Fire and Nina Simone.  We spoke with dancer Yannick Lebrun about his work with the company. You can read the interview here.

Belleville – Pasadena Playhouse

April 22 (official opening) – May 13

In Amy Herzog’s taut 90-minute play, an American couple living in Paris, newly married, finds their relationship is already starting to crack. Can the newlyweds withstand the pressures they are facing? Do they really know each other well? And what do they make of their neighbors who are also their landlords? Thomas Sadoski (Life in Pictures and the Broadway production of Other Desert Cities ) and Anna Camp (the Pitch Perfect movies ) star as the couple. Moe Jeudy-Lamour and  Sharon Pierre-Louis are the neighbors. Jenna Worsham directs.

Our Name Is Barbra – Catalina Bar & Grill

April 22nd

This annual fundraiser for Project Angel Food is celebrating its 20th year of singing the songs of Barbra Streisand. With 35 studio albums, 9 compilations, 7 live records and 15 soundtracks, it’s no wonder an event like this can last 20 years. Amongst the performers this year are Andrea Marcovicci, Ilene Graff & Ben Lanzarone, Artie Butler, Melanie Taylor & Terry Wollman and Kiki Ebsen. And if you think maintaining a fundraiser for 20 years is a big deal, just check out this little note they received last year:

Colburn Gala Concert – Walt Disney Concert Hall

April 22nd

When conductor Michael Tilson Thomas recently performed with the San Francisco Symphony at Walt Disney Concert Hall, it was his last performance with the orchestra in Los Angeles before the end of his time with that organization. What wasn’t mentioned is that it wouldn’t be his last performance this year. Though he isn’t conducting his own orchestra, he will be leading the Colburn Orchestra in a performance of Mahler’s Symphony Number 1 in D Major, “Titan” at their Gala Concert on Sunday night.

In addition to stepping on the podium for this concert, Tilson Thomas will be receiving the 2018 Richard D. Colburn Award. Also being honored this year is architect Frank Gehry.

Colburn Orchestra Photo by Matthew Imaging

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I spoke with Rhoden about Bowie’s influence on him, the work he does with the company and about Richardson performing this weekend here in Los Angeles.

You told Newsweek Magazine that Bowie, for you, “was the visual before the vocal.” Given how meticulous Bowie was about his visuals, how do you go about making new visuals to accompany his music?

I think it’s more his personality, his personas and the energy of the music. I don’t really remember the videos so much. I remember certain live performances of him and how he moved about the stage, but more about the energy he would bring into the room he was in. How he encompassed the mood of the song or delivered the lyrics to the audiences was a big inspiration. He was very expressive and exposing. He was a very authentic artist and very truthful, at least that’s my interpretation.

The Joffrey Ballet had success with Billboards, which was set to the music of Prince. Complexions has a new work set to Annie Lennox’s version of “Summertime.” What is it about androgynous/sexual/chameleon-esque performers and their music that lends itself to dance?

I think that it just speaks to me because that was the time I was coming into my own. The androgyny of Bowie and certainly Lennox was attractive because it was all about being your authentic self and not being afraid to be different. I have always felt with someone like David Bowie, and this is my interpretation, he didn’t really care what people thought. For me this is really a love letter to Bowie and his music – to his work. I just was really attracted at all times to making it work.

Your company is made up of people who didn’t grow up with the same Bowie presence as you and Desmond have. How did you go about informing them about Bowie and his work?

Absolutely, but now they are huge fans. Most of them are too young. What I did was I kind of introduced them. Many had heard of him or heard “Let’s Dance” or “Fame.” But they didn’t really associate him with 40 years of making music and how he really jumped from genre to genre without any problem. They love to perform this piece because it’s very theatrical. You can be somebody else. For me, I always feel like there’s a little Bowie in all of us.

But is there one David Bowie? Is the Bowie of Ziggy Stardust the same Bowie of Absolute Beginners?

That’s a good question. I think they are all different parts of himself and I think he had many layers. I think he was a complex man. In the production there are about seven different figures who lead the songs. That was really fun to jump from piece to piece. This is just a one-act work at this point. It was tough to pair down the playlist.

Desmond Richardson is performing as part of these shows in Los Angeles. How often does he still perform since he stopped touring?

He’s alive and well and a phenomenal artist. He is performing in the other work, Bach 25, which is a brand new Bach work. He performs here and there. It depends on our schedule. He’s very busy running a company, but he is still in shape and a beautiful artist. He’s one of those guys who has taken amazing care of himself and he’s in tip-top shape.

In a 2011 interview you said that fusion was the future of dance. Since then multiculturalism has been and is being more and more embraced. Multiculturalism is one of the foundations of Complexions. Is fusion a by-product of multiculturalism? And vice-versa?

I think so. It’s also my outlook on the world and how I’d like to see it. We started, Desmond and I, with one idea: to bring these seemingly different qualities and put them under one roof and watch them complement and celebrate each other. Complexions did that from day one and we are still doing it. With the company, the cast, the subject matter we work in the music and the movement and all those things are sending a simple message that has to do with unity and the beauty of differences. It would be such a boring world if we were all the same.

Bowie once said “From my standpoint, being an artist, I want to see what the new construction is between artist and audience.” Do you share that sentiment and if so, how do you see Complexions moving forward with their audience in the next ten years?

I want the work to be relatable. I want the audiences to see themselves on stage or be inspired or moved by the energy or even the subject matter. It could be something that could be disturbing to an audience member, but they are touched. It’s important we touch them. It’s important the audience is involved in the work. They don’t have to like it, but I want them to be moved one way or the other. Complexions is not afraid to entertain you. Hopefully you walk out of the theatre with a little bit more of something. A discovery. Something that it touches in your heart or your soul. Then I feel like we’ve done what we should have done. As Alvin Ailey said, “dance came from the people and should be delivered back to the people.” I echo that sensibility.

Production Photos by Hagos Rush

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