Barbara Cook Poised to Make Debut With Westchester Philharmonic, 12/20

Lyric soprano Barbara Cook will make her debut at the Westchester Philharmonic's annual Winter Pops concert on December 20. She will perform Broadway standards, as well as holiday favorites, according to a report in the New York Times.

Cook has performed internationally, in some of the world's best known performance halls, including the Royal Albert Hall, the Sydney Opera House, the Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall. This performance will mark her debut with the Westchester Philharmonic.

"We just crossed our fingers and hoped she was available," said Joshua Worby, the Philharmonic's executive director, "and were thrilled when she was."

To read the rest of the story in the New York Times, please click here.

The Winter Pops concert will be held on December 20 at 3 PM at the Performing Arts Center at Purchase College, located at 735 Anderson Hill Road in New York. For tickets and more information, please call (914) 682-3707 or visit www.westchesterphil.org.

Barbara Cook - considered "Broadway's favorite ingénue" during the heyday of the Broadway musical - then launched a second career as a concert and recording artist soaring from one professional peak to another. Her silvery soprano, purity of tone, and warm presence have delighted audiences around the world for more than 50 years.

Whether on the stages of major international venues throughout the world or in the intimate setting of a New York nightclub Barbara Cook's popularity continues to thrive - as evidenced the celebration of her 80th birthday in the Fall of 2007 with three sold out concerts with the New York Philharmonic at Avery Fisher Hall, her solo concert debut at the Metropolitan Opera (which made her the first female pop singer to be presented by the Met in the company's long history), and a succession of six triumphant returns to Carnegie Hall where she made a legendary solo concert debut in 1975. Miss Cook's ever-growing mantle of honors including the Tony, Grammy, Drama Desk and New York Drama Critics Circle Awards, as well as her citation as a Living New York Landmark, her induction into the Theatre Hall of Fame and Musical America's 2007 Vocalist of the Year award.

A leading star during the Broadway musical's "golden age" of the 50's and 60's, her many Broadway credits include the creation of three classic roles in the American musical theatre: Cunegonde in Leonard Bernstein's Candide, Marian the Librarian in Meredith Willson's The Music Man (Tony Award) and Amalia in Bock and Harnick's She Loves Me (Drama Desk Award).