Photo Coverage: 92Y's LYRICS & LYRICISTS Celebrates Harold Arlen
By: Stephen Sorokoff Jan. 23, 2017
The 92Y's Lyrics & Lyricists 2017 opened this weekend celebrating the music of Harold Arlen and BroadwayWorld was there.
January may bring "Stormy Weather" and only a "Paper Moon" but the 92Y's "Got the World on a String" and are "Over the Rainbow." Lyrics & Lyricists 2017 season opened with "Get Happy: Harold Arlen's Early Years," celebrating the composer of those American Songbook classics, and hundreds more. The show will run January 21-23, 2017 at 92Y.
Robert Kimball, Vince Giordano and KLea Blackhurst-an artistic-director-triumvirate of L&L veterans-focus on Arlen's early years as the toast of Broadway, Hollywood and the big-band scene. Joining Klea on vocals are Stephen DeRosa, Erin Dilly, Catherine Russell, and Nathaniel Stampley with Vince Giordano and the Nighthawks playing swinging vintage charts.
"Esteemed by his peers and by aficionados of the Great American Songbook, composer Harold Arlen has never achieved the name recognition he merits," comments Robert Kimball. "Nevertheless, his songs - from his first hit, the 1930 'Get Happy' and 'Over the Rainbow,' beloved by generations, to 'Blues in the Night' and 'The Man That Got Away' - are on everyone's list of standards. Our show's survey of highlights from Arlen's songs of the 1930s represents just one decade of his remarkable contributions -- to Harlem's famed Cotton Club, Broadway, and Hollywood." Kimball also notes in a further historical note that the very first L&L -on Dec 13, 1970-featured Arlen's frequent collaborator, E.Y. "Yip" Harburg, best known for his lyrics to The Wizard of Oz.
The documentary Vince Giordano-There's a Future in the Past, which had its New York premiere at 92Y in July, 2016, opens at Cinema Village on January 13. Directed and produced by Dave Davidson and Amber Edwards (Michael Feinstein's American Songbook on PBS) and released by First Run Features, the film explores how Giordano-with The Nighthawks-has become the leading authority, practitioner, and purveyor of big band music of the 1920s and '30s. It chronicles, with humor and pathos, what it takes to keep a Jazz Age enterprise going in the 21st century and provides a fascinating glimpse into his vast library of some 60,000 band arrangements, musical instruments, hot jazz-era films and 78-rpm recordings.
Since 1970, Lyrics & Lyricists, the pioneering American Songbook series, and one of 92Y's signature programs, has celebrated the work of songwriters like Jerome Kern, Cole Porter, Dorothy Fields, Betty Comden & Adolph Green, Sheldon Harnick, and David Zippel with champions and interpreters of the American Songbook including Kathleen Marshall, Rob Fisher, Billy Stritch, John Pizzarelli, Ted Sperling, Mark Lamos, and Ted Chapin. 92Y Lyrics & Lyricists receives support from Gilda and Henry Block; the Hite Foundation, Inc.; The Harold W. and Ida L. Goldstein Lecture Fund through the Estate of Sanford Goldstein; The Edythe Kenner Foundation; The Henry Nias Foundation, courtesy of Dr. Stanley Edelman; and the Wechsler Foundation.
92nd Street Y is a world-class, nonprofit cultural and community center that fosters the mental, physical and spiritual health of people throughout their lives, offering: wide-ranging conversations with the world's best minds; an outstanding range of programming in the performing, visual and literary arts; fitness and sports programs; and activities for children and families. 92Y is reimagining what it means to be a community center in the digital age with initiatives like the award-winning #GivingTuesday, launched by 92Y in 2012 and now recognized across the US and in a growing number of regions worldwide as a day to celebrate and promote giving. These kinds of initiatives are transforming the way people share ideas and translate them into action both locally and around the world. More than 300,000 people visit 92Y
Photo Credit: Stephen Sorokoff
92Y Lyrics & Lyricists Get happy: Harold Arlen's Early Years, Vince Giordano & The Nighthawks
KLea Blackhurst, co-artistic director, vocals & host
Robert Kimball, co-artistic director
Vince Giordano, co-artistic director, co music director & arrangements
Erin Dilly, KLea Blackhurst, Nathaniel Stampley, Stephen DeRosa
Erin Dilly, Stephen DeRosa, Nathaniel Stampley, KLea Blackhurst
Stephen DeRosa & KLea Blackhurst
Catherine Russell, Stephen DeRosa, Erin Dilly, KLea Blackhurst, Nathaniel Stampley
Lyrics & Lyricists
Get Happy: Harold Arlen's Early Years
Susan James, Robert Kimball, Jamie deRoy
Jamie deRoy, KLea Blackhurst, Eda Sorokoff
92Y
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