Vanessa Williams, Rita Moreno, Liz Callaway & More on Tap for Lincoln Center's 2016 AMERICAN SONGBOOK Season

Returning for its 17th season, Lincoln Center's acclaimed series American Songbook will continue to broaden its scope in celebrating the best in American singing and songwriting as interpreted by top performers and rising stars, with events at three Lincoln Center venues. The series will expand to Mesa Arts Center, in Mesa, Arizona, with three performances in March. And for the third time, American Songbook will partner with Prudential Investment Management for an online program, Invest in the Future of American Song, through which the audience selects the performer to open the American Songbook season at the David Rubenstein Atrium.

The Appel Room series opens with Vanessa Williams performing in the breathtaking space in Frederick P. Rose Hall on January 20, 2016. A vast and varied array of performances continues there through February 27 for 16 nights of great music. On the remarkable roster: a Peggy Lee tribute concert hosted by James Gavin, with Jane Monheit, Nellie McKay, and other special guests; Loudon Wainwright III; Rita Moreno; Craig Finn of The Hold Steady; the songs of Todd Almond, with special guest Courtney Love; Janis Ian; Jerry Dixon and Mario Cantone; an acoustic set by Foreigner; a concert version of Ricky Ian Gordon and Leonard Foglia's chamber opera A Coffin in Egypt featuring the renowned mezzo-soprano Frederica von Stade; Laura Jane Grace of the punk band Against Me!; Broadway's Andy Karl and Orfeh; Rhiannon Giddens, Leyla McCalla, and Bhi Bhiman in Swimming in Dark Waters-Other Voices of the American Experience; Latin fusion band La Santa Cecilia; gender illusionist Charles Busch; and Terri Lyne Carrington's The Mosaic Project: Love & Soul featuringValerie Simpson and Oleta Adams.

On March 16, American Songbook shifts to the intimate Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse in the Samuel B. & David Rose Building for six performances. Brooklyn-based Australian duo Luluc opens the series, followed by folk singer-songwriter Anaïs Mitchell; Broadway family The Cooper Clan, featuring Tony Award winner Chuck Cooper and his children Lilli, Eddie, and Alex; Liz Callaway singing the songs of Maltby & Shire; composer and vocalist Imani Uzuri; and the multi-talented Grace McLean. With a seating capacity of just 225, the Kaplan Penthouse allows performers to be heard to best advantage. Complimentary glasses of wine and bottled water are available to audience members, who are seated at cocktail tables. The Kaplan Penthouse also offers stunning city views.

For the first time ever and in keeping with its mission of bringing the best of the performing arts to the broadest possible audience, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts will curate an additional American Songbook festival over the course of one long weekend, March 3-5, 2016, at Mesa Arts Center in Mesa, Arizona.

For the third season, American Songbook will partner with Prudential Investment Management with Invest in the Future of American Song, an online competition through which the public chooses a performer for a free American Songbook concert at the David Rubenstein Atrium on January 19. Three performers have been nominated by Lincoln Center. Beginning on November 16, audience members will vote for their favorite artist via social media. The selection of the winner will be announced on December 14.

"We are proud to partner with Lincoln Center to expand the vibrant legacy of American Songbook," said David Hunt, President and CEO of Prudential Investment Management. "American Songbook continues to be a marvelous series that celebrates and makes accessible the dynamic scope of American music performed by a blend of legendary performers and emerging talent."

Tickets for the Friends of Lincoln Center go on sale November 2 and to the general public beginning November 16. Tickets may be purchased online beginning November 16, 2015 at AmericanSongbook.org, via CenterCharge at 212.721.6500, at the Alice Tully Hall and David Geffen Hall Box Offices, or at the Frederick P. Rose Hall Box Office. Premium packages-including wine, dinner, and the best seats in the house. More information is available at AmericanSongbook.org.

Artists and performances subject to change.

American Songbook lead support is provided by Prudential Investment Management

More about the performances

American Songbook in The Appel Room

Frederick P. Rose Hall, Broadway at 60th Street

Wednesday, January 20, 2016, 8:30 pm Vanessa Williams

One of America's most versatile performers, Vanessa Williams brings lustrous sophistication to everything from Stevie Wonder to Sondheim, Kander and Ebb to "Colors of the Wind." Her three-decade career expanded from chart-topping pop artist to critically acclaimed Broadway performer with her 1994 debut in Kiss of the Spider Woman, followed by a Tony-nominated performance in the 2002 revival of Into the Woods. She has sold over 7 million records worldwide and starred in last season's impressive concert version of Show Boat with the New York Philharmonic at Lincoln Center, which aired on PBS on Live From Lincoln Center in October.

Tickets start at $55

Thursday, January 21, 2016, 8:30 pm Is That All There Is? Remembering Peggy Lee, hosted by James Gavin, featuring Jane Monheit, Nellie McKay, and other special guests

Peggy Lee cast a spell when she sang. She epitomized cool, but her trademark, "Fever"-covered by Madonna and Beyoncé-is the essence of sizzling sexual heat. Hear that and other songs that made her famous, along with stories about Lee and the bizarre dreamworld she inhabited, at this tribute. Hosted and narrated by biographer James Gavin and based on his acclaimed book Is That All There Is?: The Strange Life of Peggy, the show features two-time Grammy-nominated jazz singer Jane Monheit; charismatic singer-songwriters Spencer Day and Nellie McKay; celebrated British songstress Barb Jungr; Rebecca Parris, New England's First Lady of Jazz; and Lee's longtime pianist-conductor Mike Renzi. This vibrant musical biography explores the radiant, eccentric, and mysterious star whose work inspired Joni Mitchell, Dusty Springfield, k.d. lang, Petula Clark, and Diana Krall.

Tickets start at $50

Friday, January 22, 2016, 8:30 pm Loudon Wainwright III

Considered to be one of America's most astute lyrical commentators, the Grammy-winning folk musician and actor Loudon Wainwright III has inspired scores of singer-songwriters with his striking confessional style. His vast catalog of songs swings from bittersweet and reflective to witty and wild, parsing out nuggets of truth by unknotting the complicated ties that bind. He is the patriarch of one of America's most famous musical families and his acclaimed recent solo show, "Surviving Twin," candidly explored his relationship to his father, the respected writer Loudon Wainwright, Jr.

Tickets start at $35

Saturday, January 23, 2016, 8:30 pm Rita Moreno

An unstoppable presence on stage and screen for over 70 years, Rita Moreno has won all four of the most prestigious awards in show business: the Oscar, the Tony, two Emmys, and a Grammy. The actress was the first Hispanic woman to win an Academy Award, which she earned for her epic portrayal of Anita in West Side Story. Moreno has starred on Broadway and the West End; appeared in more than 40 feature films, and countless television shows. At 83, Moreno is as vibrant as ever. She earned critical praise for her solo show Rita Moreno: Life Without Makeup in 2011. This Fall, she released her "first ever" all Spanish language album, Una Vez Mas, produced by Emilio Estefan, which debuted at #13 on Billboard's Latino Pop chart and her new animated children's series, Nina's World, premiered on NBC-TVs Sprout Network. Her five-decade streak of awards and achievements culminates in December when she will be recognized with a Kennedy Center Honor.

Tickets start at $55

Wednesday, February 3, 2016, 8:30 pm Craig Finn

Best known as the front man for Brooklyn indie band The Hold Steady, Craig Finn has drawn comparisons to Bruce Springsteen for his narrative-driven, world-weary songs that explore, in his words, the hangover after the celebration. In his solo work, he sheds the driving energy of The Hold Steady for a quieter sound world in which his stories stand illuminated in the foreground. His critically acclaimed second solo album, Faith In The Future, is filled with characters seeking redemption in the darkness and persevering in the face of tragedy and change.

Tickets start at $30

Thursday, February 4, 2016, 8:30 pm The Songs of Todd Almond

with special guest Courtney Love

Praised for his brilliant lyrics and music, Todd Almond is one of musical theater's most innovative contemporary voices. With an auteur skill set-he is a composer, lyricist, playwright, and performer-Almond has been lauded for his visionary collaborations with The Public Theater (The Odyssey, The Tempest, The Winter's Tale), playwrights Jenny Schwartz, Sarah Ruhl, and Marcus Gardley, and singer-songwriter Matthew Sweet. Almond's silvery voice brings brilliant sheen to lyric-driven melodies that open up vast wells of emotion. Here, Almond reconnects with director Lear deBessonet for a 360-degree tour of his music, featuring rock legend and Kansas City Choir Boy co-star Courtney Love.

Tickets start at $55

Friday, February 5, 2016, 8:30 pm Janis Ian

Experience two-time Grammy Award-winning Janis Ian's singular life through her unforgettable songs at this intimate solo performance from a true American great. A literal child of the 1960s folk revival-her breakout song "Society's Child" was written in 1965 when she was just 14-the iconic songwriter has run a streak of poignant honesty, powerful activism, and disarming humor through the past five decades of American music. Ian has earned nine Grammy nominations in eight different categories, ranging from jazz to spoken word. An accomplished writer, formidable guitarist, and famously charismatic stage performer, Ian continues to inspire audiences wherever she goes.

Tickets start at $50

Saturday, February 6, 2016, 8:30 pm Jerry Dixon & Mario Cantone

The last time actor, songwriter, and director Jerry Dixon (If/Then, Once on This Island, tick, tick...BOOM!) and comic/actor Mario Cantone (Sex in the City, Assassins) teamed up, they created Laugh Whore, Cantone's wickedly entertaining and Tony-nominated one-man show-turned-Showtime special. Now, one of the New York theater world's favorite married couples comes together on stage in the intimate confines of The Appel Room for a delicious evening of stories, songs, and laughs.

Tickets start at $55

Wednesday, February 17, 2016, 8:30 pm Foreigner: The Hits Unplugged

Founded by guitarist and 2013 Songwriters Hall Of Fame inductee Mick Jones, Foreigner is one of the most successful rock bands of all time. The band's legendary songs, of which 16 landed in the Billboard Top 30, have enjoyed a recent surge in popularity thanks in part to the musical Rock Of Ages and numerous uses in film and television such as "I Want To Know What Love Is" in the season finale of Orange Is The New Black. The band, synonymous with sold-out arena shows, plays an acoustic set, striking to the core of timeless songs like "Waiting For A Girl Like You," "Cold As Ice," and "Hot Blooded." Their album The Hits Unplugged And Live, recorded last summer in Michigan, will be released in early 2016. The band is donating royalties from this album to Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.

Tickets start at $55

Thursday, February 18, 2016, 8:30 pm A Coffin in Egypt: An Opera in Concert featuring Frederica von Stade

Legendary mezzo-soprano Frederica von Stade performs Ricky Ian Gordon and Leonard Foglia's one-act chamber opera, A Coffin in Egypt, which they wrote especially for her. It is the story of Myrtle Bledsoe, a 90-year-old widow reflecting on her life in tiny Egypt, Texas. Gordon's intimate, touching score, with a libretto by Leonard Foglia based on the play by Horton Foote, gracefully distills both the crushing bitterness and overwhelming radiance of one woman's life story.

Tickets start at $50

Friday, February 19, 2016, 8:30 pm Laura Jane Grace of Against Me!

As lead singer, songwriter, and guitarist of Against Me!, Laura Jane Grace has been an electrifying torchbearer of punk in the new millennium. In 2012, Grace-born Tom Gabel-came out publicly as a transgender woman. Grace has since become a powerful voice for gender variant people, and has candidly explored her experiences in interviews, her Emmy-nominated web series True Trans, and her music. Against Me!'s last studio album, Transgender Dysphoria Blues, brings to the forefront what had been an undercurrent on their earlier records: beautifully crafted songs that tell a personal story.

Tickets start at $30

Saturday, February 20, 2016, 8:30 pm Andy Karl & Orfeh

Loved by Broadway audiences and critics, the funny and sexy real-life couple Andy Karl & Orfeh have had an impressively long run as two of Broadway's favorite performers. Although they met while doing the Broadway production of of Saturday Night Fever, their irrepressible chemistry became the stuff of legend when they co-starred in Legally Blonde, which garnered Orfeh a Tony Award nomination. Karl has earned his own Tony nods for his performance in the title role of Rocky and last season's On the Twentieth Century. This sizzling evening will be directed by Charles Randolph-Wright.

Tickets start at $35

Wednesday, February 24, 2016, 8:30 pm Rhiannon Giddens, Leyla McCalla, and Bhi Bhiman: Swimming in Dark Waters-Other Voices of the American Experience

Rhiannon Giddens (Carolina Chocolate Drops) rocketed to the forefront of the folk scene with her crackling performance of Odetta's "Waterboy" at the all-star Inside Llewyn Davis concert at Town Hall in 2013. In Swimming in Dark Waters, Giddens joins forces with Bhi Bhiman, a St. Louis-born folk musician of Sri Lankan heritage, and Leyla McCalla, a New York-born, Louisiana-trained cellist and singer of Haitian heritage. Together, the trio will explore America's long, yet too often overlooked, history of protest, subversion, and cultural resistance by musicians of color, from original inhabitants to recently arrived immigrants.

Tickets start at $35

Thursday, February 25, 2016, 8:30 pm La Santa Cecilia

Spurred by a 2014 Grammy for Best Latin Rock Album, this effervescent Latin fusion band has undergone a dramatic evolution in the past two years from L.A. hometown favorite to musical champions of a new generation of Latino Americans. Named for the patron saint of music, La Santa Cecilia is fronted by the charismatic Marisol Hernandez or "La Marisoul." Seamlessly integrating cumbia, bossa nova, rumba, bolero, tango, jazz, rock, klezmer, and any other music that crosses their path, the band's smart songs are vibrant reflections of Los Angeles's intriguing tapestry of cultures.

Tickets start at $30

Friday, February 26, 2016, 8:30 pm Charles Busch

One of New York's most sought-after cabaret stars, Charles Busch shares the giddy enchantment of his world through song and stories. A two-time MAC Award winner, Tony nominee, and recipient of a Drama Desk Lifetime Achievement Award, the actor, playwright (Vampire Lesbians from Sodom, The Tale of the Allergist's Wife), novelist, screenwriter, director, and drag legend has happily added "vaudevillian" to his resume over the past few years.

Tickets start at $50

Saturday, February 27, 2016, 8:30 pm Terri Lyne Carrington's Mosaic Project: Love & Soul

featuring Valerie Simpson and Oleta Adams

At this performance, jazz, soul, R&B, and gospel will converge, and standing firmly at the intersection are three towering talents: three-time Grammy winning jazz drummer, band leader, and composer Terri Lyne Carrington; Songwriter Hall of Fame member and singer Valerie Simpson ("Ain't No Mountain High Enough"), and Grammy nominated singer and pianist Oleta Adams. Born out of Carrington's expansive all-female collaborative vision, The Mosaic Project, this evening of song illuminates the cross-pollination of American music and its endlessly fascinating permutations.

Tickets start at $35

American Songbook in the Penthouse,

Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse, 165 West 65th Street, 10th Floor

Wednesday, March 16, 2016, 8:00 pm Luluc

Splitting time between their native Australia and their adopted home in Brooklyn, singer/songwriter Zoë Randell and guitarist Steve Hassett create finely wrought modern folk tunes, luxuriously serene music that floats above the normal rhythms of contemporary life. Having opened for Lucinda Williams, José González, and Fleet Foxes, they co-produced their 2014 albumPasserby with The National's Aaron Dessner, earning places on numerous "Best of 2014" lists.

Tickets start at $45

Thursday, March 17, 2016, 8:00 pm Anaïs Mitchell

Over the past five years, the folk singer-songwriter Anaïs Mitchell has released four remarkable albums and assembled a starry entourage of collaborators that includes Jefferson Hamer, Ani DiFranco, and Bon Iver's Justin Vernon. Whether she is on a dark exploration of American manhood or mining old English and Scottish ballads, the Vermont native has built a vast and personal mythology. Her folk opera Hadestown-a retelling of the Orpheus myth set in the Depression era-will be produced by the New York Theatre Workshop in spring 2016.

Tickets start at $45

Friday, March 18, 2016, 8:00 pm The Cooper Clan All Together with Chuck, Eddie, Alex, and Lilli Cooper

"All of our voices come from our ancestors," the Tony Award-winning actor Chuck Cooper once said. "It's in our DNA." For one night only, Chuck, renowned for his gorgeous baritone and forceful presence on Broadway for nearly three decades, leads a long-awaited onstage family reunion featuring his equally exceptional children: Lilli (Spring Awakening, Wicked), Eddie (Little Shop of Horrors, Cinemax's Banshee), and Alex, a multi-talented musician and artist.

Tickets start at $45

Wednesday, March 30, 2016, 8:00 pm The Story Goes On: Liz Callaway Sings Maltby & Shire

A Broadway legend, recording star, and celebrated cabaret artist, Liz Callaway (Cats, Miss Saigon, Follies in Concert at Lincoln Center) pays homage to one of the great American songwriting teams for the stage and revisits, among many others, the songs that earned her a Tony nomination in 1984 for Baby. With her celebrated voice, Callaway illuminates an essential corner of the music theater repertoire.

Tickets start at $45

Thursday, March 31, 2016, 8:00 pm Imani Uzuri

The composer and vocalist Imani Uzuri has collaborated with an eclectic array of artists including Herbie Hancock, John Legend, Vijay Iyer, and Robert Ashley. Her breakthrough album The Gypsy Diaries, influenced by Sufi and Southern music, was recently released to overwhelming critical praise. Channeling Odetta, Sister Gertrude Morgan, Elizabeth Cotten, Marian Anderson, Vera Hall, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Mahalia Jackson, and other transformative voices of the past, Uzuri spins a powerful evening of music inspired by black American vernacular traditions, accessed through her own rural North Carolina origins.

Tickets start at $45

Friday, April 1, 2016, 8:00 pm Grace McLean

With her smoky, sunny voice, bottomless well of musical creativity, and inexhaustible charm, the electrifying singer, actress, and composer Grace McLean makes her triumphant return to Lincoln Center, where she performed last season as the winner of Prudential Investment Management's Invest in the Future of American Song. Her recent onstage appearances include the Off-Broadway hits Brooklynite, Bedbugs!!!, and Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812.

Tickets start at $45