The Elena Bennett and Fred Barton Song Salon Returns To Pangea

Elena Bennett and Fred Barton have announced the return of their long-hailed "Bennett & Barton Song Salon," in the front room of Pangea, 2nd Ave. at 12th St., on two Tuesdays, April 11 and April 18. The event will run for two hours on each night, between 8:30pm and 10:30pm. There is no cover or minimum.

Bennett & Barton were the first to originate the format of the Song Salon in the late 1990s, in their heyday at the pinnacle of cabaret/piano bars, Eighty-Eights. In addition to performing songs and taking requests from their vast repertoire, encompassing the best of Golden Age swing, Hollywood, Broadway, and radio - Bennett and Barton invite guest performers to get up with their best and knock it out of the park, for an unpredictable evening determined by audience members themselves.

Their guests in the past included Liza Minnelli, Phyllis Diller, Mary Rodgers, Marshall Barer, Robert Wright and Chet Forrest, and the best-known Broadway and cabaret singers in town.

Elena and Fred state: "We want to bring back the free-wheeling, unplanned, improvised night we have missed for so long, where all our fellow performers, friends and fans who love our favorite music as much as we do can drop in and join us in a crazy-quilt celebration of the Golden-Age soundtrack of our generation and those that came before."

Elena's and Fred's Song Salon led to their CD "A Wrinkle in Swingtime," still in print (and streaming) after 24 years - featuring Elena singing 14 classics and novelties with Fred's 27-piece orchestra. They were selected by Sydney's Ministry of Culture and Protocol to be the feature hosts of the Sydney Cabaret Convention. The pair has also appeared at the Back Stage Bistro Awards, as well as the New York Cabaret Convention, most recently in October where they stopped the show with a rare E. Y. Harburg masterpiece.

Elena Bennett has performed in countless venues, specializing in creative renditions of classics and novelties drawn from the American Popular Songbook, as well as unique interpretations of Edith Piaf's songs. She starred in the acclaimed musical theatre piece "Erik and the Snow Maidens," and toured the country as the lead singer of the sell-out big-band revue "Forever Swing." She has sung with innumerable great musicians, including Les Paul, Murray Grand, Albert Hague, Billy Stritch, and Jason Robert Brown. She was lead vocalist for the Charles Brown Band, as well as the 18-piece big band, "The Music Masters." She is the winner of a Manhattan Association of Cabaret's (MAC) Hanson Award, and a BACK STAGE MAGAZINE BISTRO Outstanding Vocalist Award, and was named Best Piano Bar Entertainer of the Year by IN THEATRE MAGAZINE, and CABARET SCENES MAGAZINE selected her as one of the Top Acts of the Century in January 2000. She is currently working with her longtime collaborator on a follow-up big band album to "A Wrinkle in Swingtime."

Fred Barton debuted as co-creator of the original Forbidden Broadway - a two-night club act that ran for 27 years, winning an honorary Tony Award, multiple Drama Desk and Critics' Circle Awards, and spawning numerous CDs and touring companies. He then wrote book, music and lyrics for Miss Gulch Returns! (Back Stage Bistro Award in Musical Comedy Performance), with the recording becoming a cult classic, still in print after 36 years; the show is regularly produced at theaters around the country. Fred's third Off-Broadway venture, Whoop-Dee-Doo!, won two Drama Desk Awards, and resulted in a London production and an RCA cast album. He arranged and performed in Spamilton Off-Broadway, music-supervising numerous regional companies and the four-year national tour. For TV, Fred composed for The Magic Schoolbus, won an Emmy for his work on the hit Wonder Pets!, and music-supervised Olivia and HBO's Cathouse: The Musical. On Broadway and on tour, Fred conducted Anthony Quinn in Zorba, Hal Prince's Cabaret revival, Cy Coleman's City Of Angels, and Robert Goulet in Camelot; he played in the Broadway pits of Grease (Tommy Tune production), Guys & Dolls (Nathan Lane revival), and The Will Rogers Follies. For five years he produced concerts of show music with the Fred Barton Orchestra at the Michael Schimmel Center, and just co-founded the All Roads Theatre Company in Los Angeles. His symphony arrangements are regularly played at Carnegie Hall, most recently in Marilyn Maye's historic concert, and by symphonies around the country. As a pianist, he's played for dozens of major stars; but by far his favorite is the incomparable Elena Bennett.