Melissa Errico - Remembers Stephen Sondheim 2022- Live at The Green Room 42

GREEN ROOM 42 PLAYLIST: • MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND F...
Live at The Green Room, NYC
March 22, 2022
Musical Director: Tedd Firth
Much-lauded Sondheim interpreter Melissa Errico brings her tribute show to TGR42. “The finest all-Sondheim album ever recorded”, that was the Wall Street Journal’s ecstatic verdict on Melissa Errico’s album “Sondheim Sublime”. Now, Melissa brings her glamour, her gorgeous silvery voice, her unique expressive gifts and the immaculate vocal style that Sondheim loved , all to bear in a concert of the greatest songs of the greatest Broadway composer of his time. From “Send In The Clowns” to “No One Is Alone”, Melissa will sing all the Sondheim standards, and offer stories and insights as well from her decades’ long relationship with the composer. Come hear why one critic said that hearing Melissa singing Sondheim left him, “Stunned into an amazing feeling of having witnessed something life changing, life enhancing and of incredible beauty...an unforgettable evening.”
Melissa Errico is a Tony Award-nominated Broadway star, concert artist, and author. The Wall Street Journal recently referred to her as a "nonpareil cabaret singer” and called her 2018 album, Sondheim Sublime, “The best all-Sondheim album ever recorded”. That album led to sold-out concert dates around the country--from Ravinia to Caramoor and Wolftrap-as well as in London and Paris. Her Sondheim roles on stage include Dot in Sunday In The Park With George at The Kennedy Center, Clara in Passion at Classic Stage Company; and Leona in the NY City Center Encores! production of Do I Hear A Waltz? In 2020, she sang “Children and Art” in the Sondheim 90thBirthday Concert “Take Me To The World,” and was featured on PBS television in a documentary special in which she sang “Finishing The Hat” and discussed Sondheim and his lyrics with Adam Gopnik and Raul Esparza for Poetry in America.
Her starring roles on Broadway include My Fair Lady, Amour, High Society. Among her other musical mainstays is Michel Legrand who arranged and conducted her symphonic album “Legrand Affair.” She was the only American performer invited to sing at the extraordinary two-day memorial to Legrand in 2019 at Paris’ Grand Rex theater. She has also sung countless concerts of American song, ranging from Randy Newman to Irving Berlin, including stints at the 92 St Y, Birdland, Joe’s Pub, Carnegie Hall, Town Hall, Lincoln Center’s Allen Room, and many appearances at Feinstein’s/ 54 Below, with her special concert-essay about coming back to New York was held over for encores twice last fall. Her latest album, Out Of The Dark: The Film Noir Project was just released from Warner Music/Ghostlight Records and began life as a specially commissioned bilingual series of concerts at the French Institute/Alliance Francaise.
An active writer all her life, she has since 2016 authored a series of pieces for The New York Times under the special rubric of “Scenes From The Acting Life,” which she is in the process of adapting into a book.
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“After being in three Sondheim musicals- Sunday, Passion and Do I Hear A Waltz?- it became clear to me that those experiences stood apart from all others I had had in my life in the theater. I began to have a deep feeling about his art as music and enchantment first, virtuosity in words and smarts second. That was what I meant by the word “Sublime” and I made an album, with his counsel, called Sondheim Sublime. (One song from “Roadshow,” sung by an insensitive mother, he particularly wanted included.)
And how I cherished his ambivalences! Once, after the final dress rehearsal for “Do I Hear a Waltz?” Sondheim stood in front of the entire company and crew. He suddenly noticed me, and I said “Hello!” and he burst out “Oh hello! You were wonderful, most of the time.” I knew at once that I was in the presence of the famous Sondheim cesura, the comma, where one thing is said and then gets qualified, made a little unsure. Even his face, beneath his beard, always seemed to me to be twisted like a comma, in a state of perpetual ambivalence. That comma, that breadth of affirmation and doubt, is what makes him so astounding, and so wonderful to sing--most of the time. No, all of the time. I’ll never stop.”
- Melissa Errico
www.Sondheimsublime.com
melissaerrico.com

[@glpr1]

Thank you so much for posting this, Melissa. It is generous of you to share this for those of us who could not be there.

[@janethill2411]

Now this is talent! Wake up world. It doesn't get better than this. Such a voice! And doing Sondheim, the musical genius. Such a find for me. Deep thanks.

[@bigtopvoice2197]

Brilliant artistry!

[@BarryJoseph]

Fantastic! Thank you Melissa.

[@charlesrabb5568]

I saw her in the pre broadway production of High Societ. In San Francisco

[@leif1075]

Yes ditto.

[@victorlleonart8497]

Can someone post the name of this pianist. Thank You.

[@albertfujitsubo307]

Tedd Firth

[@user-ql3fe5md4d]

Ew