Audra McDonald Kicks Off GO BACK HOME Summer, Fall 2013 Tour

According to Audra McDonald's official website, the singer will be taking her first solo album in seven years, Go Back Home, on a national tour. Go Back Home was released May 21 on Nonesuch Records. McDonald's new tour dates across North America will kick off with a performance at the Midland Center for the Arts in Midland, MI, tonight, June 8. Scroll down for a full list of tour dates!

Go Back Home features songs by composers with whom Audra has long been associated (Adam Guettel, LaChiusa, Rodgers & Hammerstein, Stephen Sondheim) and some, like the Kander & Ebb title track, relatively new to her repertoire; in addition, Audra continues to champion works by an emerging generation of composers, represented on this recording by Adam Gwon, Heisler and Goldrich, and Will Reynolds.

After four seasons spent in Los Angeles playing Dr. Naomi Bennett on ABC's hit medical drama Private Practice, the acclaimed singer and actress returned to New York and Broadway last year, winning her record-tying fifth Tony Award for her role in The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess. With Go Back Home, the Grammy Award-winning soprano, whose voice Stephen Sondheim has hailed as "one of the glories of the American theater," makes her highly anticipated return to recording, presenting her most personal album to date.

Born into a musical family, McDonald grew up in Fresno, California, where as a child she began singing in her local community theater (her first audition piece was Rodgers & Hammerstein's "Edelweiss," which she has recorded for Go Back Home). A year after graduating from Juilliard, she won her first Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Musical for Carousel. She won two additional Tonys in that category, for Terrence McNally's play Master Class (1996) and his musical Ragtime (1998), earning her an unprecedented three Tony Awards before the age of 30. In 2004 she won her fourth, for A Raisin in the Sun, and in 2012 she won her fifth Tony and her first in the leading actress category for her role in The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess. (Julie Harris and Angela Lansbury are the only other people to have won five performance Tony Awards.)

A familiar face on PBS, McDonald has headlined telecasts including an American Songbook season-opening concert, a presentation of Sondheim's Passion, a tribute concert to Rodgers and Hammerstein titled Something Wonderful, and four galas with the New York Philharmonic: a New Year's Eve performance in 2006, a concert celebrating Sondheim's 80th birthday, Carnegie Hall's 120th Anniversary Concert, and, most recently, "Marvin Hamlisch: One Singular Sensation," a New Year's Eve tribute to the late composer. She was also featured in the PBS television special "A Broadway Celebration: In Performance at the White House," singing at the request of President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama. This season McDonald hosts nine telecasts as part of her new role with Live From Lincoln Center.

McDonald's previous Nonesuch releases are Build a Bridge (2006), Happy Songs (2002), How Glory Goes (2000), and Way Back to Paradise (1998). To purchase 'Go Back Home' on Amazon, click here.

NEW TOUR DATES:

JUNE 8, 2013
Midland Center for the Arts
Midland, MI
Tickets on sale April 15

JUNE 15, 2013
Colonial Theater Association / Berkshire Theater Group
Pittsfield, MA

JULY 6, 2013
Guild Hall
East Hampton, NY

JULY 12, 2013
Napa Valley Festival del Sole
Calistoga, CA

AUGUST 3, 2013
Caramoor
Katonah, NY

AUGUST 24, 2013
Film Night at Tanglewood
Tanglewood
Lenox, MA

SEPTEMBER 3, 2013
San Francisco Symphony Opening Night Gala
Davies Symphony Hall
San Francisco, CA

SEPTEMBER 5, 6, 2013
Bravo! Professional Performing Arts at BYU Presents Audra McDonald
de Jong Concert Hall, Brigham Young University
Provo, UT

SEPTEMBER 7, 2013
Austad Auditorium, Weber State University
Ogden, UT

SEPTEMBER 15, 2013
Hill Auditorium, University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, MI

SEPTEMBER 21, 2013
An Evening with Audra McDonald
Krannert Center, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Urbana, IL

SEPTEMBER 28, 2013
Royal Conservatory of Music
Toronto, ON

OCTOBER 12, 2013
An Evening with Audra McDonald
Symphony Center
Chicago, IL

OCTOBER 19, 2013
Brown Theater, Wortham Center
Houston, TX

OCTOBER 20, 2013
Long Center
Austin, TX

OCTOBER 25, 2013
Balboa Theater
La Jolla, CA

OCTOBER 26, 2013
Audra McDonald One Night Only
Los Angeles Music Center
Los Angeles, CA

NOVEMBER 2, 2013
Reynolds Performance Hall, University of Central Arkansas at Conway
Conway, AR

NOVEMBER 8, 2013
Whitney Hall
Louisville, KY

NOVEMBER 15, 2013
The Sheldon
St. Louis, MO
Friends of The Sheldon Benefit

NOVEMBER 16, 2013
Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts
Kansas City, MO
A Benefit Concert for Arts Education

NOVEMBER 22, 2013
McCarter Theatre Center
Princeton, NJ

NOVEMBER 23, 2013
Staller Center for the Arts
Stonybrook, NY

DECEMBER 21, 2013
Audra McDonald with The Phoenix Symphony
Mesa Arts Center
Mesa, AZ