Travis Moser Releases New Version of 'Rainbow Connection' With Drew Wutke

Cabaret, concert and recording artist Travis Moser and musical director and pianist Drew Wutke have released a new recording of "Rainbow Connection" by Paul Williams and Kenneth Ascher. The Academy Award nominated song was originally written for the 1979 film, The Muppet Movie and reached number 25 on the Billboard Hot 100 in November 1979. In 2020, the song was deemed "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant" by The Library of Congress and was selected for preservation in the National Recording Registry.

This new arrangement of "Rainbow Connection" is featured in Moser and Wutke's new show, Someday Soon: The Songs of Judy Collins, which is currently on tour and can be seen at City Winery locations across the country. The show will play City Winery Pittsburgh on Thursday, August 31st at 7:30pm. As Travis says in the show, Judy Collins was one of the first non-amphibian puppets to record and release the song.

"Rainbow Connection" was recorded, engineered and mastered at The Smooth Spot Recording Studio by Michael Kevin Walsh. The cover photo was taken by Mike Clark of Clarks Studio and the cover art was designed by Maria Mylona. The single is available on iTunes, Apple Music, Spotify and everywhere music is streamed/sold! For more information check out TravisMoser.HearNow.com and TravisMoser.com!

More About Travis Moser

In a feeble attempt to fulfill an unquenchable need for attention, cabaret, concert and recording artist Travis Moser has packed houses and won acclaim for his solo shows in NYC and around the country. His most recent show, Someday Soon: The Songs of Judy Collins, is currently enjoying a tour of City Winery venues across the country and has featured guests such as two-time Tony Award-winning Broadway legend Judy Kaye. His previous show, Just One Look: The Songs of Linda Ronstadt, paid homage to the legendary goddess of music and debuted at NYC's famed The Green Room 42. Travis was joined by cabaret icons Molly Pope, Cathy Cervenka, Daryl Glenn, Jack Bartholet, Elijah Caldwell, and Lillian Andrea De Leon (over the course of multiple engagements), with a full band led by musical director, Drew Wutke. Travis has also explored the golden age of music with his show, This Can't Be Love: The Songs of Rodgers and Hart, which debuted at the legendary 54 Below with special guest Samantha Shafer from Broadway's West Side Story, South Pacific, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, and Rocky - The Musical. This Can't Be Love: The Songs of Rodgers and Hart celebrates one of the most prolific and legendary songwriting duos of all time. Travis Moser takes the audience on a journey through the Rodgers and Hart songbook, while offering backstage and personal stories about the songs and the shows from which they came. The show features new arrangements and mashups of some of Rodgers and Hart's most beloved songs. This Can't Be Love: The Songs of Rodgers and Hart recently celebrated a 3rd return engagement at Feinstein's/54 Below!

Due to the success of the initial run, Travis had the honor of performing This Can't Be Love: The Songs of Rodgers and Hart for an extended run at NYC's famed Metropolitan Room. Travis also joined a lineup of performers that included Tony Danza, Pia Zadora, Annaleigh Ashford, and many others to salute Broadway great Elaine Stritch in the Metropolitan Room's Remembering Elaine Stritch. Travis is featured in the annual Love Bites: The Best Duets Ever! show at Joe's Pub at The Public Theater and Madonnathon at Brooklyn Bowl and the legendary Highline Ballroom. Travis has also performed his solo shows at City Winery, Club Cumming, Birdland, The Laurie Beechman Theater, Don't Tell Mama, The Duplex, The Iguana, The National Arts Club and The Strand Theater, among countless others.

Travis' debut album This Can't Be Love: The Songs of Rodgers and Hart, based on his show, was recorded live throughout the run. This recording captures Steven Silverstein's exciting new arrangements of these Rodgers and Hart classics. Travis also had the privilege of teaming up with The Human Rights Campaign to release stripped down versions of some of his favorite songs, including Born for You, Get Here, I've Dreamed of You and Danglin'. Proceeds from the sales of these singles go directly to HRC. Other singles include the Jimmy Webb classic, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, a new arrangement of Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, with proceeds from each sale gong directly to Planned Parenthood, Fifty Percent from the musical Ballroom, Stephen Sondheim's Sooner or Later, John Bucchino's It Feels Like Home, The Rose and And So It Goes. His 2nd full length album, Travis Moser Live at the Laurie Beechman Theatre, was recorded at the famed venue and features songs of yearning, hope and home from the worlds of contemporary pop and musical theater. His albums, Travis Moser Live at the Laurie Beechman Theatre, This Can't Be Love: The Songs of Rodgers and Hart, Just One Look: The Songs of Linda Ronstadt and So Many People: The Sondheim Sessions (with Drew Wutke) were all nominated for BroadwayWorld Cabaret Awards. All recordings are available on iTunes, Apple Music, Amazon, Spotify, Tidal, Google Play and all other major music retailers.

Regionally, Travis had the opportunity to work with two-time Tony Award nominee Margot Sappington in the Pittsburgh Playhouse production of Jekyll and Hyde. Other regional credits include Action in West Side Story, Jack in Into the Woods, Master Nick Cricker in The Mystery of Edwin Drood and Joseph in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, and featured soloist in Disney and More: The Music of Menken and Rice at the historic Strand Theater, among others.

On camera, Travis has been a featured soloist on The Children's Hospital Free Care Benefit Show for CBS and is currently a National Anthem soloist for the New York Roadrunners (NYRR) organization and the Staten Island Yankees.

Travis is THRILLED to have the distinction of being officially inducted into the Guinness World Records as a featured vocalist in the Metropolitan Room's Longest Variety Show!

More About Drew Wutke

One of NYC's most in-demand multidisciplinary artists and music directors, Drew continues to play and music direct all over the world (including B'way/OffBway/Intnl/Regionally/on Tour/in Backyards/on Zooms), creating at the piano, studio, screen, or stage alongside Tony, Emmy, and Grammy winners. After almost a decade of working in music and theatre departments at universities in Indiana and Oklahoma (and, incidentally, as a worship arts pastor), Drew traded in cornfields for concrete, working as a music director and starting a private premiere coaching studio in NYC for over another decade. He hails from Girard, Kansas, where his parents were teachers and coaches and his brother and sister-in-law have two amazing kiddos.

Recent solo shows incl Kelli O'Hara, Mason Park ft Stephen Trask, Tituss Burgess, John-Andrew Morrison, Billy Gilman, and MCC's Miscast Gala. You may have seen him on PBS' SONDHEIM/COMPANY documentary ft on Great Performances!, in the viral webseries TURNING THE TABLES or in an award-winning piano bar livestream. In 2020, he rocked Live from Lincoln Center with Stephanie Blythe/Blythely Oratonio. His work has been featured in the New York Times, Playbill, The New Yorker, NY1, Time Out, UK's Observer, BroadwayWorld and on PBS, just to name a few, and he is the first solo award-winning piano bar entertainer at legendary piano bar singalong venue Marie's Crisis. He premiered NYC's LITTLE ISLAND Piano Bar Singalongs, and also performed in Times Square on Broadway for Playbill/Prudential's BELT IT OUT ON BROADWAY. He has also been a featured guest entertainer overseas with ATLANTIS cruises. He proudly is the co-producer/arranger/MD/co-creator of Kevin Smith Kirkwood's CLASSIC WHITNEY: ALIVE! concert series at Joe's Pub at The Public, which started its historic run of shows in 2015. His Miscast concert series work featured artists Tina Fey, Tituss Burgess, Cynthia Errivo, Jessie Mueller, Aaron Tviet, Gavil Creel, Lea Salonga, and Leslie Odom, Jr., just to name a few.

His songwriting partner is queer activist and artist Madge Deitrich (stream their debut album THERAPY), and they are both members of and artists who are part of the Middle Collegiate Church community in NYC.

He has many shows in development, including a musical based on Say Yes to the Dress, a Sophie Tucker bio musical, as well as is the Music Supervisor for the West-End/Bway-aimed FOR TONIGHT (Shenelle Salcido/Spencer Williams). Other selected: B'way/OffBway: keys/reh: AMAZING GRACE (sub), KINKY BOOTS; Fiasco/McCarter's award-winning INTO THE WOODS (wkshp MD, McCarter reh); Pre-Bway: BeBe Winans' BORN FOR THIS (Boston/DC, conductor/pianist/reh pianist); Baayork Lee"s National Asian Artist Project (Music Dir/conductor). In dev: YES! (Say Yes to the Dress the Musical); Danny Bolero's Desi Arnaz musical I AM CUBAN PETE; Christina Crawford's MOMMIE DEAREST; BELLE OF TOMBSTONE; Jim Steinman's THE DREAM ENGINE. He also developed DiAna Pasari's I GOT NAKED TODAY. You can find he and his world-class bands frequenting any live music venue in NYC or around the world, including Feinstein's 54Below, Birdland, City Winery, Bucks County Playhouse Jazz at Lincoln Center. He is the other half of Michelle Dowdy's ROWDY DOWDY HOUR, and performs often with Natalie Joy Johnson, Kevin Smith Kirkwood, Heather Botts, WICKED's first Asian-American Elphaba on Bway, Alyssa Fox, and is the music director for many things Bravo-centric, including Amy Phillips' CABARAMY as well as touring with Countess Luann.