AUDIO: Listen to a track from Audra McDonald's GO BACK HOME Album; Release Set for 5/21

Nonesuch releases Audra McDonald's first solo album in seven years-Go Back Home-on May 21, 2013. After four seasons spent in Los Angeles playing Dr. Naomi Bennett on ABC's hit medical drama Private Practice, the acclaimed singer and actress returned to New York and Broadway last year, winning her record-tying fifth Tony Award for her role in The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess. With Go Back Home, the Grammy Award-winning soprano, whose voice Stephen Sondheim has hailed as "one of the glories of the American theater," makes her highly anticipated return to recording, presenting her most personal album to date.

Many of the selections on Go Back Home are by composers with whom McDonald has long been associated (Guettel, LaChiusa, Rodgers & Hammerstein, and Sondheim, among others), while some songs, including the Kander and Ebb title track, are by names that are relatively new to her repertoire. In addition, McDonald continues her tradition of championing works by an emerging generation of composers, represented on this recording by Adam Gwon, Heisler and Goldrich, and Will Reynolds (complete track list on next page). The album was produced by Doug Petty, who also produced McDonald's 2006 release Build a Bridge; musical director Andy Einhorn conducted the ensemble. Go Back Home is available to pre-order at nonesuch.com and includes an instant download of the title track plus a limited-edition autographed print as well as a download of the complete album available starting release day.

On Friday, May 24, three days after the album's release, McDonald headlines and hosts "Audra McDonald In Concert: Go Back Home," a national PBS telecast presented by the Emmy Award-winning series Live From Lincoln Center (check local listings). The program is being recorded live to tape on Thursday, May 9, when McDonald performs songs from the album as well as other personal favorites in concert at Avery Fisher Hall. Last fall, McDonald was named the official host of the acclaimed television series, adding a new chapter to her long history with the Lincoln Center campus, where she attended The Juilliard School and won her first Tony for her performance in Carousel at Lincoln Center Theater.

Born into a musical family, McDonald grew up in Fresno, California, where as a child she began singing in her local community theater (her first audition piece was Rodgers & Hammerstein's "Edelweiss," which she has recorded for Go Back Home). A year after graduating from Juilliard, she won her first Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Musical for Carousel. She won two additional Tonys in that category, for Terrence McNally's play Master Class (1996) and his musical Ragtime (1998), earning her an unprecedented three Tony Awards before the age of 30. In 2004 she won her fourth, for A Raisin in the Sun, and in 2012 she won her fifth Tony and her first in the leading actress category for her role in The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess. (Julie Harris and Angela Lansbury are the only other people to have won five performance Tony Awards.)

A familiar face on PBS, McDonald has headlined telecasts including an American Songbook season-opening concert, a presentation of Sondheim's Passion, a tribute concert to Rodgers and Hammerstein titled Something Wonderful, and four galas with the New York Philharmonic: a New Year's Eve performance in 2006, a concert celebrating Sondheim's 80th birthday, Carnegie Hall's 120th Anniversary Concert, and, most recently, "Marvin Hamlisch: One Singular Sensation," a New Year's Eve tribute to the late composer. She was also featured in the PBS television special "A Broadway Celebration: In Performance at the White House," singing at the request of President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama. This season McDonald hosts nine telecasts as part of her new role with Live From Lincoln Center.

McDonald's previous Nonesuch releases are Build a Bridge (2006), Happy Songs (2002), How Glory Goes (2000), and Way Back to Paradise (1998). To preorder, visit: http://www.nonesuch.com/albums/go-back-home

Track List:

1. Go Back Home
From The Scottsboro Boys
Music and Lyrics by John Kander and Fred Ebb

2. The Glamorous Life
From the film A Little Night Music
Music and Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim

3. Baltimore
Lyrics by Marcy Heisler / Music by Zina Goldrich

4. First You Dream
From Steel Pier
Music by John Kander / Lyrics by Fred Ebb

5. Tavern
Music by Will Reynolds / Text by Edna St. Vincent Millay

6. Migratory V
From Saturn Returns
Music and Lyrics by Adam Guettel

7. Virtue
Music and Lyrics by Michael John LaChiusa, inspired by Marlene Dietrich's ABC

8. Married Love
Music and Lyrics by Michael John LaChiusa, inspired by Marlene Dietrich's ABC

9. I'll Be Here
From Ordinary Days
Music and Lyrics by Adam Gwon

10. Some Days
Music by Steven Marzullo / Text by James Baldwin

11. Edelweiss
From The Sound of Music
Music by Richard Rodgers / Lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II

12. Make Someone Happy
From Do Re Mi
Music by Jule Styne / Lyrics by Betty Comden & Adolph Green