Review: HEATHER HEADLEY with the National Symphony Orchestra at Kennedy Center

When summer ends many people get depressed. Let’s face it, you can’t go to the beach or your private summer home for another year. However, you can look on the bright side of things knowing that the end of summer brings a new season of audible brilliance from the mighty National Symphony Orchestra (NSO). This past Saturday evening, the NSO Pops season opened with a bang as Tony Award winning performer Heather Headley made her Kennedy Center Concert Hall debut. The evening featured lots of show tunes, a choir, a TV vocal competition winner, and most importantly, YOUR NSO under the baton of Maestro Steven Reineke.

Maestro Reineke’s energy literally flowed off the stage with the first downbeat for Jack Everly’s orchestration of “One Night Only” from Dreamgirls. There are many reasons why he is so in demand as a conductor. When you thoroughly enjoy what you do, the orchestra catches the energy and follows along.

Heather Headly then took the stage and started us off with her own wonderful take on “Over the Rainbow” from The Wizard of Oz as arranged by and D Louie.

From there the evening just kept elevating in quality. I can’t mention everything, but I wanted to talk about a few of the standout moments.

The first would have to be a mashup of two Stephen Sondheim songs. Heather Headly and her Musical Director Ron Colvard arranged “No One is Alone” and “Children Will Listen” from Into The Woods into something that would rate as pure perfection. Now imagine Ron Colvard adding an orchestration that only involved four musicians, turning this medley into the ultimate chamber piece. The featured soloists were Colvard on piano, David Teie on cello, Tom Langana on guitar and Adriana Horne on harp.

Another big highlight was a superb version of Jason Robeert Brown’s “I’m Still Hurting” from The Last Five Years. Ms. Headley’s vocal captured the raw emotion of someone going through a break up. Ron Colvard’s orchestration took Jason Robert Brown’s already brilliant arrangement and simply enlarged it for symphony making the power of the song even bigger in its sound.

Headly’s knockout act one closer known as the “Stars Medley” consisted “Written in The Stars” from Aida which Headly won her Tony Award for, the title song from the underappreciated Kurt Weill/Maxwell Anderson musical Lost in the Stars and “Hold On” from The Secret Garden. This was bar none one of the best put together medleys I’ve ever heard. The three songs transitioned seamlessly. The orchestration was by Don Hart and D Louie.

Act two got even better as things kicked off with Headley’s roof raising performance of “River Deep, Mountain High” as orchestrated by Ron Colvard and vocally backed up by the fantastic Heritage Signature Chorale.

Guest artist and season one winner of The Voice Javier Colon dueted with Headley twice. The first was on “The Prayer” from the movie Quest for Camelot and then on a jaw dropping arrangement of “Amazing Grace”. The latter was so good you couldn’t move when it was over. Colon also had a solo turn playing guitar and singing ’s “Hallelujah”.

Without coming out and telling the audience who to vote for in the upcoming election, Headley and the chorale made their message clear with “Make Them Hear You” from Ragtime. Ron Colvard orchestrated the song specifically for this concert.

Maestro Reineke and the NSO had only one other feature besides “One Night Only”. Mark Mancina’s “He Lives in You” was written for the stage version of The Lion King. Reineke’s orchestration gave the percussion section a full out solo turn.

I just wish the NSO had one more feature because let’s face it, you can never have too much of a great thing.

Heather Headly, Javier Colon and the Heritage Signature Chorale opened the NSO’s pops season with a program for the ages. Maestro Reineke and the mighty NSO once again delivered in a big way. This evening was truly “Written in the Stars”.

Running Time: Two hours and ten minutes with one intermission.

This was a one night only engagement on September 7th, 2024, in the Concert Hall at Kennedy Center.

Photo Credit: L-R Heather Headley and Steven Reineke.

Heather Headley photo by Nathan Johnson. Steven Reineke photo by Matt Baker.

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