FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Press Contact: Miller Wright / Dan Fortune at (212) 977-7800
ANDREASONG AND 92ND STREET Y “LYRICS & LYRICISTS”
ANNOUNCE THE NEW RECORDING OF
“Kurt Weill in America”
STARRING ANNA BERGMAN, BARBARA BRUSSELL, MARK COFFIN, CHUCK COOPER, JEFF HARNAR, MAUDE MAGGART AND ANDREA MARCOVICCI
FEATURING BOTH FAMOUS AND RARE LYRICS BY IRA GERSHWIN, OSCAR HAMMERSTEIN, LANGSTON HUGHES, ALAN JAY LERNER AND MORE
ANDREASONG and the 92nd Street Y, home of the long-running “Lyrics & Lyricists” series, have announced the release of Kurt Weill In America, the new CD of the original concert conceived, written and directed by Andrea Marcovicci. The album was produced by Ms. Marcovicci and her longtime musical director Shelly Markham, with Frank Skillern serving as executive producer. Featuring a deluxe 48 page booklet with complete lyrics, dozens of color photos and in-depth liner notes, the CD will be released by Ms. Marcovicci’s Andreasong label on April 23, 2007.
Celebrating German-born composer Kurt Weill and the lyrics of Maxwell Anderson, Ira Gershwin, Oscar Hammerstein, Langston Hughes, Alan Jay Lerner, Ogden Nash, Paul Green and Ann Ronell, the concert opened the 92nd Street Y’s 36th annual “Lyrics and Lyricists” season in November 2005. Ms. Marcovicci hosted and starred in the show along with an acclaimed cast featuring Anna Bergman, Barbara Brussell, Mark Coffin, Chuck Cooper, Jeff Harnar and Maude Maggart. Amid an exciting revival of interest in Weill’s music, the CD coincides with the opening of a new Broadway musical LoveMusik, about the relationship of Weill and his wife and muse Lotte Lenya.
Weill’s work is traditionally considered dark and serious, but this CD is a perfect opportunity for music and theatre lovers to discover his true variety: in his aspirations to the join the American pantheon, he brought us sweeping romantic melodies, charming comic tunes and stately anthems. The album features well-known favorites “Speak Low” (One Touch of Venus), “My Ship” (Lady in the Dark) and “September Song” (Knickerbocker Holiday), along with rarely-recorded songs from shows like Firebrand of Florence, The Lunchtime Follies and Huckleberry Finn, as well as a newly-unearthed number cut from the 1938 Henry Fonda film Blockade.
Before Kurt Weill fled Nazi Germany for Paris in March 1933, he had composed a dozen works for the musical theater. Early on in his career, Weill said, "I need poetry to set my imagination in motion," and he established a lifelong practice of collaborating with only the most talented lyricists. In Germany his two most famous partners were the playwrights Georg Kaiser and Bertolt Brecht. In America, he teamed up with great American lyricists and poets like Alan Jay Lerner, Ira Gershwin, Ogden Nash, Langston Hughes and Maxwell Anderson. This recording follows the musical life of Kurt Weill in America to explore the work of several influential American lyricists in the context of their work with this singular composer. Their collective output showed Weill himself adapting to his new country, absorbing influences from his American colleagues and enjoying the newfound artistic freedom that America offered.
Weill collaborated with giants of American song like Ira Gershwin, as in the Broadway operetta Firebrand of Florence (1944) and Lady in the Dark (1940). He wrote the rarely-performed 1948 Broadway vaudeville Love Life with Alan Jay Lerner, which features the same characteristic wit and whimsy as Lerner’s best-known work, My Fair Lady.
But Weill also worked with lyricists who were primarily playwrights and poets. Pulitzer-prize-winning North Carolina playwright Paul Green, who was known for his portrayal of Southern American folk life, was Weill’s first American collaborator; the project was Johnny Johnson (1936), the offbeat story of a peace-loving soldier in World War I.
With playwright and lyricist Maxwell Anderson, Weill wrote Knickerbocker Holiday (1938), which starred Walter Huston in the Broadway production and featured the hit songs “It Never Was You” and “September Song.” Anderson and Weill also started work on a musical version of Huckleberry Finn, but Weill completed only five songs before his death in 1950. These songs were performed in public for the first time at the 92nd Street Y under the direction of L&L founder and Weill’s conductor, Maurice Levine, in 1952. The great American poet Langston Hughes wrote the lyrics for Weill’s 1947 opera Street Scene, which was based on Elmer Rice's Pulitzer-Prize winning play of the same name. Another great American poet and journalist, Ogden Nash, collaborated with Weill to write lyrics to the 1943 Broadway hit, One Touch of Venus.
ABOUT THE CAST
Andrea Marcovicci, the "Queen of Cabaret," recently celebrated her twentieth anniversary at the Gardenia in Los Angeles, the Plush Room in San Francisco and the Oak Room of New York's Algonquin. She returns to the Oak Room in May with just love... By Request. Andrea has created over twenty-five nightclub acts, performed at the White House, and played to sold-out houses at the esteemed LICEU Opera House in Barcelona. She enjoyed he same reception at her Carnegie Hall solo debut with the American Symphony Orchestra and most recently at Town Hall with I'll Be Seeing You... Love Songs of WWII. As a director, Andrea conceived three programs for “Lyrics &anmp; Lyricists” including Easy to Love: The Lyrics of Cole Porter, Kurt Weill in America, and Thanks for the Memories: The Lyrics of Leo Robin, coming in May 2007.
Anna Bergman‘s most recent career highlights include Lincoln Center with Barbara Cook, Carnegie Hall (Ira At 100), Kennedy Center (A Little Night of Music), The White House, Aspen Music Festival (Street Scene) and Intiman Theatre (Adam Guettel & Friends). Barbara Brussell, a 1997 Back Stage Bistro Award winner and a six-time MAC Award finalist, has created over a dozen nightclub acts, soloed with symphony orchestras and recorded two CD’s for LML Music. Mark Coffin, who has performed internationally and throughout the states, has appeared in a tribute to Don Hewitt of “60 Minutes” performing Noel Coward, at the Yale Club, at Alice Tully Hall, the Ethical Cultural Center and Carnegie Hall. Chuck Cooper has been seen on Broadway in The Life, for which he received a Tony Award, Caroline Or Change, Lennon, Chicago, Passion and many more. He has also been guest lead on numerous TV shows like “Law and Order,” “Oz,” “NYPD Blue,” and “Cosby.” Jeff Harnar has performed at Carnegie Hall for both the Cole Porter and Noel Coward centennial galas, a solo concert at Weill Recital Hall and as Michael Feinstein’s special guest at Zankel Hall. Jeff tours nationally with Shauna Hicks in their symphony orchestra concert I Got Rhythm: Mickey & Judy’s Hollywood. Maude Maggart, the acclaimed concert and club artist who is a mainstay of the Algonquin Hotel’s Oak Room, was featured on NPR’s “Morning Edition” and Entertainment Weekly’s “Must List.” Her new CD Maude Maggart Live was praised by USA Today and Business Week.
ABOUT “LYRICS & LYRICISTS”
The granddaddy of American Songbook programs, “Lyrics & Lyricists” was launched in 1970 when longtime Broadway conductor Maurice Levine and lyricist E.Y. “Yip” Harburg (The Wizard of Oz) took to the stage of the 92nd Street Y to talk about the then unusual topic of songwriting. The series has since featured every great Broadway and Hollywood lyricist and composer, including Betty Comden and Adolph Green, Johnny Mercer, Stephen Sondheim, Dorothy Fields, Alan Jay Lerner and many more. “Lyrics & Lyricists” laid the groundwork for more recent series, like Lincoln Center’s American Songbook, Carnegie Hall’s American Popular Song Celebration and City Center’s Encores! Beginning in 2004, the Y reinvented the format of this legendary series by opening up the stage to interpretations by today’s most accomplished champions of the repertoire. Each of L&L’s five annual shows features a different artistic director who designs a show especially for the series. The artistic directors work with the Y to create original programs in the L&L tradition: a seamless mix of information and entertainment with a particular focus on lyrics. Recent artistic directors include John Pizzarelli, Rob Fisher with Sheldon Harnick, Robert Kimball, and Ted Sperling.
ABOUT THE 92nd STREET Y
Founded in 1874 by a group of visionary Jewish leaders, the 92nd Street Y has grown into a wide-ranging cultural, educational and community center serving people of all ages, races, faiths and backgrounds. The Y’s mission is to enrich the lives of the over 300,000 people who visit each year — both in person and through the Y’s satellite, television, radio and Internet broadcasts. The organization offers comprehensive performing arts, film and spoken word events; courses in the humanities, the arts, personal development and Jewish culture; activities and workshops for children, teenagers and parents; and health and fitness programs for people of every age. Committed to making its programs available to everyone, the 92nd Street Y awards nearly $1 million in scholarships annually and reaches out to 8,000 public school children through fully-subsidized arts education programs. For more information, please visit www.92Y.org.
