Marcovicci's Weill in America CD Features Maggart, Etc.

Andreasong and the92nd 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 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 36^th annual "Lyrics and Lyricists" season in November 2005.  Marcovicci hosted and starred in the show along with an acclaimed cast featuring Anna Bergman, Barbara Brussell, Mark Coffin, Chuck Cooper, Jeff Harnarand Maude Maggart.  Amid a 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," state press materials.

"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.