Nikki Renee Daniels and Jeff Kready Join LYRICS & LYRICISTS PRELUDES

92Y has announced Nikki Renée Daniels and Jeff Kready have joined the ensemble for Lyrics & Lyricists™ Preludes and Beth Malone narrates the new online autumn season for the American Songbook series, with five concerts filmed on the stage of 92Y's historic Kaufmann Concert Hall. Daniels, Kready and Malone join Farah Alvin, Allison Blackwell, Katherine Henly, James T. Lane, Telly Leung, Kara Lindsay, Julia Murney, Zachary Noah Piser, Zachary Prince, Pearl Sun and Mariand Torres, under the artistic direction of Paul Masse.

Preludes premieres on October 26 with a concert celebrating George Gershwin and continues through December with programs on Tom Jones & Harvey Schmidt; Richard Rodgers, Mary Rodgers, & Adam Guettel; and Jule Styne; plus a special program of songs written for film. The roster of artists in the George Gershwin premiere episode - falling on the 90th anniversary of the hall's opening - is below, along with the full Preludes schedule.

92Y has announced a collaboration with the new global streaming arts service Stage Access™, making L&L available via its service on major apps including iOS, Roku, Google Chromecast, FireTV, Android and Apple TV. Stage Access also makes its programming available free to in-patients at participating New York area hospitals during the COVID-19 pandemic.

L&L tickets are on sale now at 92Y.org/lyrics. Visit StageAccess.com to download the Stage Access app to learn more.

Lyrics & Lyricists Preludes Series

George Gershwin: BIDIN' MY TIME

October 26, 7 pm ET
Featuring: Farah Alvin, Allison Blackwell, James T. Lane, Kara Lindsay, and Zachary Prince
As a companion to the Gershwin program from this past March (rescheduled for spring of 2021), this program is set among excerpts of letters and archival interviews with George Gershwin and his brother and lyricist Ira Gershwin, his longtime musical collaborator and friend Kay Swift, and his witty and legendary friend and pianist Oscar Levant. The words of Todd Duncan and Anne Brown, the original Porgy and Bess , provide an intimate perspective of the creation of Gershwin's "folk opera" and the invaluable contributions of its performers. Peppered among hits like "Embraceable You" and "Love Is Here To Stay" are pieces of essays written by George Gershwin in which he pondered and pontificated on the meaning of "jazz" and the definition of "music" itself. Asserting his constant effort to eschew genres, Gershwin wrote: "From any sound critical standpoint, labels mean nothing at all. Good music is good music, even if you call it 'oysters.'"

Tom Jones & Harvey Schmidt: SIMPLE LITTLE THINGS

November 9, 7 pm ET
60 years ago, on May 3, 1960, at the tiny Sullivan Street Playhouse in Greenwich Village, The Fantasticks opened on the sparsest of budgets and ran uninterrupted for nearly 42 years, closing on January 13, 2002 after a record 17,162 performances. Its elegance and simplicity endured four decades of the chaotic world going "Round and Round" while its creators continued their evolution into several uptown successes. Including 110 In the Shade and I Do! I Do! , the jewel box of creativity that is the Jones and Schmidt collaboration is perhaps the most steadfast of its kind.

RODGERS, RODGERS, AND GUETTEL: STATUES AND STORIES

November 23, 7 pm ET
The groundbreaking works of Richard Rodgers, most famously in his collaborations with Lorenz Hart and Oscar Hammerstein II, gave us the foundation of the modern musical form. But Rodgers also left a family lineage that has enriched the craft in abundant fashion. In a loose song cycle format, this program will weave his work with the charming and witty creations of daughter Mary Rodgers (Once Upon a Mattress) and the complex and extraordinary palette of grandson Adam Guettel (The Light in the Piazza, Myths and Hymns ), as we look toward the progression of musicals over the decades and into the future.

Jule Styne AND HIS MANY LYRICISTS: DISTANT MELODY

December 7, 7 pm ET
It is said that Jule Styne published over 1,500 songs in his lifetime, a staggering number that spans decades and includes dozens of collaborators. Beginning with Sammy Cahn in the 1940s, his lyricists would include names like Betty Comden, Adolph Green, Leo Robin, Bob Merrill, and Stephen Sondheim. Styne wrote some of our most famous songs and classic Broadway hits, with dozens of lesser-known work along the way. The lasting power of star vehicles like Gypsy and Funny Girl has remained throughout every sea change of cultural mood and sentiment.

THE THEME FROM...: SONGS WRITTEN FOR FILM

December 14, 7 pm ET
As a celebration of our performers, and the necessary medium of film to tell these stories at this moment in time, this special program presents some of the best songs specifically written for film ever since the genre first achieved the technology to capture sound. A diverse concert of hits like "Moon River" and "The Man That Got Away" mixed in with other songs from decades of film history offers a look at the effect of these songs on an audience and how, even in a non-musical film, music is key to unlocking the emotional journey of storytelling.