Telly Leung, Kara Lindsay, Julia Murney & More Featured in 92Y's LYRICS & LYRICISTS PRELUDES

This fall brings new life toa??92Y's Lyrics & Lyricists™ with Preludes, a new autumn series to be available online. Five short-form programs will serve as a prologue to the upcoming 50th Anniversary Season in Spring 2021 in this special series led by Artistic Director Paul Masse. The first program, filmed on the stage of 92Y's historic Kaufmann Concert Hall premieres on October 26th, to celebrate the hall's 90th anniversary.

Part of honoring the extraordinary history and breadth of this much-loved series is also looking toward a vibrant future. As always L&L features insights, stories, and performances from top-tier performers, and work from beloved composers and songwriters who have been a part of our history, with a special focus on the performers and writers who continue to be inspired by the evolving nature of music and the arts as a reaction to the energy of the moment.

All of the performances are filmed on 92Y's concert hall with socially-distanced artists who have been longing to stand on a stage once again and do what they have worked their entire lives to be able to do: connect through song to as many people as will hear them.

"We feel that the return to the stage is essential to renewing the relationship between audience and performer," comments Paul Masse. "We must continue to give artists and performers a way to connect with each other and with audiences if we are to endure the uncertainty that surrounds us and be able to rise again on the other side of this moment. For centuries, people have gathered in concert halls and theaters to witness live performance. The impact of that live energy can never be replaced; it is an absolutely essential energy through which audiences have developed a deeper and truer understanding of the world around them. The performing arts do not exist without performers, and we need this level of human connection more than ever."

Performers include: Farah Alvin, Allison Blackwell, Katherine Henly, James T. Lane, Telly Leung, Kara Lindsay, Julia Murney, Zachary Noah Piser, Zachary Prince, Pearl Sun, Mariand Torres and more to be announced!

Lyrics & Lyricists Preludes Series:

George Gershwin: BIDIN' MY TIME

October 26, 7 pm ET
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.

Paul Masse has led the Broadway orchestras of The Scottsboro Boys, The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess, Holler If Ya Hear Me, It Shoulda Been You, Fun Home, Avenue Q, Anastasia, Dear Evan Hansen and Wicked, and has played in the pit of more than 25 other Broadway shows as a pianist and accordionist. He was the musical supervisor for London's West End premiere of The Scottsboro Boys. He appeared in the Kennedy Center production and subsequent PBS broadcast of First You Dream and has been recorded on several original cast albums and TV/film soundtracks. His concert appearances include events with the New York Pops, Orchestra of St. Luke's, and the New York Philharmonic and he is a Voting Member of the Recording Academy. As a writer, he has ghostwritten and edited for fiction and non-fiction authors, including refugees for whom English is a third or fourth language. He is a graduate of New York University.

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