The 92nd Street Y announces the 2009 line-up for Lyrics & Lyricists™, the Y's legendary American Songbook series. This is the first season curated by new series artistic director DEBORAH GRACE WINER, who created three shows for L&L over the last five years, and is now taking on responsibility for the overall artistic direction of the series. Her inaugural line-up of guest artistic directors features Martin Charnin, David Zippel, Robert Kimball, Rex Reed, and Billy Stritch.
Subscriptions for the season will go on sale June 15. Individual tickets for all performances go on sale in August. Please call 212-415-5500 or go to www.92Y.org/lyrics for more information.
Winer's passion for the American Songbook and her commitment to bringing this classic genre to a wider, younger audience informs her approach to Lyrics & Lyricists. "The American Songbook is continuously fresh for each new generation of listeners, and new generations of songwriters are constantly expanding the Songbook's range," Winer says. "In concerts stressing musical excellence and featuring the cream of today's performers, I look forward to bringing the classics to audiences who have not yet discovered this music, while also introducing the knowledgeable and enthusiastic L&L crowd to songs being written now in the American Songbook tradition, and are destined to become the 'classics' of tomorrow."
Winer's roster of guest artistic directors this season are planning shows that span the full range of the American Songbook, from the 1920s to the present.
Martin Charnin kicks things off in January with a RICHARD RODGERS retrospective, tracing the composer's work with five collaborators (plus Rodgers' work as both composer and lyricist). In February
David Zippel, whose credits include Broadway's City of Angels and the hit films Mulan and Hercules, presents his own work alongside some of the Songbook classics that influenced him.
Robert Kimball looks back at the Roaring Twenties through the lens of Tin Pan Alley superstars DESYLVA, BROWN & HENDERSON in April.
Rex Reed showcases IRA GERSHWIN, apart from brother George, in May, and
Billy Stritch closes out the season in June by celebrating the incomparable MEL TORMÉ, exploring songs the "Velvet Fog" made famous as well as a few he wrote.
L&L shows are Saturday at 8 pm, Sunday at 3 and 8 pm, and Monday at 2 and 8 pm. Individual tickets are $60 and $50; subscriptions to the entire series are $250 and $220. L&L will also inaugurate an under-35 ticket price for the Saturday and Sunday evening performances, with $25 individual tickets and $100 for a season subscription.
Lyrics & Lyricists is produced by the 92nd Street Y Tisch Center for the Arts under the direction of its director, Hanna Arie-Gaifman.
The Lyrics & Lyricists series is partially underwritten by The Blanche and Irving Laurie Foundation. The performances of Lyrics & Lyricists' "Sunday in New York" show are underwritten by Gilda and Henry Block and Kenneth Kolker.
Lyrics & Lyricists: 2009 Season
January 10, 11, 12
RODGERS &…: INSIDE FIVE COLLABORATIONS
Martin Charnin, Artistic Director, Host
Martin Charnin (Annie) is the last lyricist to have worked with Richard Rodgers on Broadway before his death in 1979. In a personal retrospective, Charnin traces the career of this musical legend through his collaborations with five remarkable songwriters: Hart, Hammerstein, Sondheim, Harnick and Charnin, along with Rodgers' own Tony Award-winning lyrics.
February 21, 22, 23
IT STARTED WITH A DREAM:
David ZippelLYRICS HE WROTE - LYRICS HE WISHES HE WROTE
David Zippel, Artistic Director, Host
One of today's leading lyricists,
David Zippel (City of Angels, The Goodbye Girl, Mulan, Hercules) is a Tony Award-winner and multiple Oscar, Emmy and Grammy award nominee. He presents highlights from his own scores and shares his inspirations and personal favorites from the American Songbook canon.
April 4, 5, 6
SUNNY SIDE UP: ROARING THROUGH THE TWENTIES WITH DESYLVA, BROWN & HENDERSON
Robert Kimball, Artistic Director
The Lennon/McCartney of their time, DeSylva, Brown & Henderson were the megastar songwriting team of Prohibition-Era Tin Pan Alley who turned out hits like "You're the Cream in My Coffee," "Button Up Your Overcoat," "The Best Things in Life Are Free" and the definitive college musical, Good News. Musical theater historian and guest artistic director
Robert Kimball has previously created L&L shows on Mack Gordon, Johnny Mercer and Irving Berlin. Featuring the vintage big band Vince Giordano & The Nighthawks, with authentic sizzling-'20s arrangements.
May 9, 10, 11
THE MAN THAT GOT AWAY: IRA AFTER GEORGE
Rex Reed, Artistic Director, Host
Some of Ira Gershwin's greatest hits – including "Long Ago and Far Away," "The Man That Got Away," and "My Ship" – were co-written not with his brother George, but with composers Jerome Kern, Harold Arlen and Kurt Weill, among others. The inimitable critic and author
Rex Reed, longtime co-host of the syndicated television show At the Movies and currently a culture columnist for The New York Observer, leads this showcase celebrating the astonishing career of Ira Gershwin apart from George.
June 6, 7, 8
SUNDAY IN NEW YORK: MEL TORMÉ IN WORDS AND MUSIC
Billy Stritch, Artistic Director, Vocals, Piano
Billy Stritch, Grammy-winning jazz singer, composer, arranger, vocalist, and jazz pianist, honors the incomparable singer and songwriter Mel Tormé. Widely known as a singer, Tormé also wrote more than 250 songs, including one of the most famous lines in the American Songbook: "Chestnuts roasting on an open fire," from "The Christmas Song."
Billy Stritch performed with Mel Tormé in 1988 as part of the JVC Jazz Festival at Carnegie Hall and his fifth CD,
Billy Stritch Sings Mel Tormé, was released earlier this year.
ABOUT LYRICS & LYRICISTS:
Long one of the 92nd Street Y's most popular programs, the American Songbook series Lyrics & Lyricists™ was launched in 1970 when longtime Broadway conductor Maurice Levine and lyricist E.Y. "Yip" Harburg (The Wizard of Oz) took to the stage to talk about the then unusual topic of songwriting. Over the years the series has featured every great Broadway and Hollywood lyricist including
Betty Comden and
Adolph Green, Johnny Mercer,
Stephen Sondheim, Dorothy Fields, and Alan Jay Lerner. In 1978, Lyrics & Lyricists began celebrating composers as well as lyricists and, in 1982, the series evolved from first-person histories of the American musical theatre to narrated musical revues. In 2004, the 92nd Street Y reinvented the format yet again when it asked several accomplished champions of the repertoire – artists like
John Pizzarelli,
Andrea Marcovicci,
Rob Fisher,
Sheldon Harnick,
Robert Kimball and
Ted Sperling – to present original programs in the Lyrics & Lyricists tradition: seamless mixtures of information and entertainment with a particular focus on lyrics. For more information, please visit www.92Y.org/lyrics.
ABOUT THE 92nd STREET Y:
Since launching its concert series in 1934, what is now the 92nd Street Y Tisch Center for the Arts has presented acclaimed classical musicians and exciting newcomers. The Center is also home to the Y's legendary American songbook series, Lyrics & Lyricists, and to major names in jazz and world music, from Dick Hyman, John and Bucky Pizzarelli, and Bill Charlap, artistic director of the Y's summer Jazz in July festival, to Israel's David Broza and Chava Alberstein and Brazilian guitarists Sergio and Odair Assad. Through its literary program, the Unterberg Poetry Center, the Tisch Center presents the country's oldest and arguably most illustrious reading series as well as an extensive writing program that gives working adults access to teachers who are published authors – a rarity outside M.F.A. programs. The 92nd Street Y Tisch Center for the Arts is endowed through the generosity of the Joan and Preston Robert Tisch family. For more information, please visit www.92Y.org/tisch.
Founded in 1874 by a group of visionary Jewish leaders, the 92nd Street Y has grown into a wide-ranging cultural, educational and community center serving people of all ages, races, faiths and backgrounds. The 92nd Street Y's mission is to enrich the lives of the over 300,000 people who visit in person each year as well as those who visit virtually, through the Y's satellite, television, radio and Internet broadcasts. The organization offers comprehensive performing arts, film and spoken word events; courses in the humanities, the arts, personal development and Jewish culture; activities and workshops for children, teenagers and parents; and health and fitness programs for people of every age. Committed to making its programs available to everyone, the 92nd Street Y awards nearly $1 million in scholarships annually and reaches out to 7,000 public school children through subsidized arts education programs. For more information, please visit www.92Y.org.
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