ANYWHERE I WANDER: THE FRANK LOESSER

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ANYWHERE I WANDER: THE FRANK
LOESSER SONGBOOK
Monday, March 26, 2012, 7:30 p.m.
15,342nd Concert
Ted Sperling, Conductor and Director
Andrew Palermo, Associate Director and
Choreographer
Starring
Ann Hampton Callaway
Victoria Clark
Jason Danieley
Marc Kudisch
Robert Morse
Bryn Terfel
Mary Testa
Featuring
John Bolton
Bernard Dotson
Michael Seelbach
Global Sponsor
With a Special Appearance by
Jo Sullivan Loesser
This concert will last approximately one and one-quarter
hours; there will be no intermission.
Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center
Home of the New York Philharmonic
Alan Gilbert, Music Director,
holds The Yoko Nagae
Ceschina Chair.
Guest artist appearances are made
possible through the Hedwig van
Ameringen Guest Artists
Endowment Fund.
Exclusive Timepiece of the New York Philharmonic
March 2012
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New York Philharmonic
ANYWHERE I WANDER: THE FRANK LOESSER SONGBOOK
Ted Sperling, Conductor and Director
Andrew Palermo, Associate Director and Choreographer*
Starring
Ann Hampton Callaway*
Victoria Clark
Jason Danieley
Marc Kudisch
Robert Morse*
Bryn Terfel
Mary Testa*
Featuring
John Bolton*
Bernard Dotson*
Michael Seelbach*
With a Special Appearance by
Jo Sullivan Loesser
LOESSER
A Frank Overture (arr. 2012)
arr. L. Hochman & T. Sperling;
orch. L. Hochman
LOESSER
orch. L. Hochman,
after Skip Martin
“A Bushel and a Peck,” from Guys and Dolls (1950)
LOESSER
orch. D. Walker
Selections from The Most Happy Fella (1956)
“Ooh! My Feet!”
“Joey, Joey, Joey”
LANE / LOESSER
arr. A.H. Callaway,
orch. B. Mays
“I Hear Music,” from Dancing on a Dime (1940)
LOESSER
orch. D. Walker
Selections from The Most Happy Fella
“Rosabella”
“Standing on the Corner”
“My Heart Is So Full of You”
*Denotes New York Philharmonic debut
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LOESSER
arr. and orch. J. Klitz
orch. D. Walker
Selections from Hans Christian Andersen (1952)
“Anywhere I Wander” (1951)
“I’m Hans Christian Andersen” (1951)
LOESSER
orch. L. Moore
“What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve” (1947)
LOESSER
orch. S. Davis
“On a Slow Boat to China” (1948), from
Neptune’s Daughter (1949)
LOESSER
orch. G. Bassman &
T. Royal
Selections from Guys and Dolls (1950)
“If I Were a Bell”
“Adelaide’s Lament”
“Luck Be a Lady”
LOESSER
orch. T. Royal, H. Spialek
& P. Lang
“Once in Love with Amy,” from Where’s
Charley? (1948)
LOESSER
orch. D. Walker
“Never Will I Marry” (1959), from Greenwillow (1960)
LOESSER
arr. J. Klitz
“I Wish I Didn’t Love You So” from The Perils of
Pauline (1947)
LOESSER
orch. R. Ginzler
“I Believe in You,” from How to Succeed in Business
Without Really Trying (1961)
LOESSER
“Spring Will Be A Little Late This Year,” from
Christmas Holiday (1944)
LOESSER
arr. J. Klitz and T. Sperling,
orch. L. Hochman
Medley
“Baby, It’s Cold Outside” (1944), from
Neptune’s Daughter
“No Two People” (1951), from Hans Christian
Andersen
JEFFREY KLITZ, keyboard; SCOTT KUNEY, guitar
PETE DONOVAN, bass; DAVID RATAJCZAK, drums
THIS CONCERT WILL BE PERFORMED WITHOUT AN INTERMISSION.
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Please be sure that your cell phones and electronic devices have been silenced.
March 2012
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Notes on the Program
By James M. Keller, Program Annotator
The Leni and Peter May Chair
The Frank Loesser Songbook
Frank Loesser grew up enveloped in a familial atmosphere that exalted high culture. His
father, Henry, was a German immigrant who
became a busy piano teacher. His older halfbrother, Arthur, who became a notable concert pianist and taught for more than four
decades at the Cleveland Institute of Music,
would later recount:
with songs that were among the most clever,
the most carefully crafted, and the most refined in the business.
He began his path in songwriting as a wordsmith. In 1931 he published his first song, “In
Love With a Memory of You,” in which his lyrics
were set to music by his childhood pal William
Schuman — who would himself go on to greatness as a composer, as president of The Juilliard School, and as the founding president of
Lincoln Center. (This was one of at least four
Schuman collaborations, though the others went
unpublished. After Loesser achieved eminence,
The atmosphere of our modest home was
acutely intellectual. … During my early
youth I used to hear the
words Art and Philoso- In Short
phy pronounced in a
tone of reverence that Frank Loesser
few Americans could Born: June 29, 1910, in New York City
comprehend. … In our
Died: July 28, 1969, in New York City
household German was
the vehicle of culture Works premiered: Guys and Dolls began tryouts at the Shubert Theatre in
Philadelphia on October 14, 1950, and opened on Broadway at the Forty-Sixth
and loftier thought. Street Theatre on November 24, 1950. The Most Happy Fella began tryouts at the
English was the suit- Shubert Theatre in Boston on March 13, 1956, and opened on Broadway at the Imable medium for pur- perial Theatre on May 3, 1956. The Paramount Pictures film Dancing on a Dime
was released in November 1940. The RKO Radio film Hans Christian Andersen
chasing vegetables.
Frank Loesser would
find a distinctly American
balance between the popular and the exceptional.
His milieux would be the
theater of Broadway and
the cinema of Hollywood —
both of them essentially
popular enterprises — but
he rewarded his audiences
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was released in November 1952; some of its score was composed the prior year
(including the three songs performed here). “What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve”
dates from 1947. The Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film Neptune’s Daughter was released
in June 1949; it included some songs written earlier, among them “On a Slow Boat
to China” (1948) and “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” (1944). Where’s Charley? began tryouts at the Forrest Theatre in Philadelphia on September 13, 1948, and opened on
Broadway at the St. James Theatre on October 11, 1948. Greenwillow began tryouts
at the Shubert Theatre in Philadelphia on January 30, 1960, and opened on Broadway at the Alvin Theatre on March 8, 1960. The Paramount Picture film The Perils of
Pauline was released in July 1947. How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying began tryouts at the Shubert Theatre in Philadelphia on September 4, 1961, and
opened on Broadway at the Forty-Sixth Street Theatre on October 14, 1961. “Spring
Will Be a Little Late This Year” was first heard in the Universal Pictures film Christmas
Holiday, released in June 1944.
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Schuman would boast wryly that he was the
only composer who had ever managed to turn
a Loesser lyric into a song that was a flop.)
In the ensuing decade Loesser turned out
song after song for vaudeville and club
singers, for musical revues, and for B-level
films. In 1936 he won a six-month contract
with Universal Studios, and the following
year — thanks to the intercession of the
songwriter Burton Lane — Loesser moved up
the Hollywood ladder to work for the more
prestigious Paramount Pictures. Before his
career was over he had contributed to nearly
100 movies, usually in collaboration with such
noted composers as Lane (“I Hear Music”),
Hoagy Carmichael (“Heart and Soul”), Frederick Hollander (“The Boys in the Backroom”),
Arthur Schwartz (“They’re Either Too Young
or Too Old”) … and the list goes on.
In 1940 he got his break as a Hollywood
composer with the title song of the film
Seventeen; in 1942 he scored a huge hit with
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his stand-alone song “Praise the Lord and Pass
the Ammunition,” only the second published
song for which he wrote both music and lyrics
but nonetheless one of the most widely known
songs of the World War II years. However, his
greatest fame in posterity came from his work
as a Broadway composer-lyricist, a reputation
that derives principally from four shows:
Where’s Charley? (1948), Guys and Dolls
(1950), The Most Happy Fella (1956), and How
to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying
(1961). There have been great Broadway composers and great Broadway lyricists, but the list
of top-drawer Broadway composer-lyricists is
select indeed: Loesser, Cole Porter, Irving Berlin,
and Stephen Sondheim.
Taken as a whole, Loesser’s shows cover a
broad range, reaching from out-and-out nostalgia (as in “Once in Love With Amy,” in
Where’s Charley? ) to the inventively paced
Guys and Dolls and the ambitious quasi-opera
(or “extended music comedy,” as he termed it)
Letting Go
Frank Loesser’s daughter, Susan Loesser, recounts in
her book A Most Remarkable Fella how one of her father’s most famous songs, the Oscar-winning “Baby, It’s
Cold Outside,” was initially intended for strictly private
entertainment. Her father wrote it in 1944 as a piece he
and his first wife, Lynn, could sing at a housewarming
party they threw at their new apartment in the Navarro
Hotel on Central Park South. She quotes her mother’s
reminiscence: “We had to do it over and over again and
we became instant parlor room stars,” and continues:
For several years my father held on to the song, which
he and my mother performed regularly at parties on
both coasts. … My mother treasured that song. She
loved performing it. She loved the fact that it was theirs
alone to perform for adoring audiences. Then, in 1948,
my father decided to sell it to MGM for the film Neptune’s Bride, starring Esther Williams and Ricardo
Montalban. “I felt as betrayed as if I’d caught him in
bed with another woman,” her mother stated. “I kept
saying ‘Esther Williams and Ricardo Montalban!!!’ He
finally sat me down and said, ‘If I don’t let go of ‘Baby,’
I’ll begin to think I can never write another song as
good as I think this one is.’ He had to let go of it.”
Esther Williams and Ricardo Montalban in the 1949 film
Neptune’s Bride
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The Most Happy Fella. Through it all he displayed a keen sense of the colloquial; probably the only composer-lyricist to rival the
naturalness of Loesser’s expression is Berlin.
Still, Sondheim has noted a distinction between the two of them:
Loesser … tailored his lyrics to the individual characters at hand, whereas Berlin
wasn’t interested in character. When they
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were characters he could understand
instinctively, urban or raffish or both, as in
Guys and Dolls and How to Succeed
in Business Without Really Trying, Loesser
was able to perform the rare trick of
sounding modestly conversational and
brilliantly dexterous at the same time….
He concealed the artifice behind the
art; he could bury and reveal his virtuosity
simultaneously.
Presumed Permission
In a 1984 radio interview, Lynn Loesser (the songwriter’s first wife) explained the origins of the song “A Bushel
and a Peck:”
This was written before Guys and Dolls was even thought of. I had read a book by Truman Capote called
Other Voices, Other Rooms [and] I insisted that Frank read it. I was getting ready for bed one evening and
Frank came tearing upstairs hollering, “You’ve got to come down, I’ve just found something.” So I went down
to the piano and he’d found a passage in Capote’s book that quoted an old nursery rhyme that went “I love
you a bushel and a peck and a hug around the neck.” He quickly wrote the whole song based on that line.
After he’d written it I asked him if maybe he should talk to Capote and ask if it was all right to use the
line. Frank brushed it off as being obviously in the public domain since it was quoted as a nursery rhyme
or saying. When Guys and Dolls came along, Frank pulled it out of the trunk and that was that.
I met Capote a year or so later and he said he’d almost sued Frank but decided at the last minute that it
wasn’t worth it.
Production still of “A Bushel and a Peck” from the original Broadway production of Guys and Dolls, starring Vivian Blaine
(center), 1952
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New York Philharmonic
2011–2012 SEASON
ALAN GILBERT, Music Director, The Yoko Nagae Ceschina Chair
Case Scaglione, Assistant Conductor
Joshua Weilerstein, Assistant Conductor
Leonard Bernstein, Laureate Conductor, 1943–1990
Kurt Masur, Music Director Emeritus
VIOLINS
Glenn Dicterow
Concertmaster
The Charles E. Culpeper
Chair
Sheryl Staples
Principal Associate
Concertmaster
The Elizabeth G. Beinecke
Chair
Michelle Kim
Assistant Concertmaster
The William Petschek
Family Chair
Enrico Di Cecco
Carol Webb
Yoko Takebe
Hae-Young Ham
The Mr. and Mrs. Timothy
M. George Chair
Lisa GiHae Kim
Kuan Cheng Lu
Newton Mansfield
The Edward and Priscilla
Pilcher Chair
Kerry McDermott
Anna Rabinova
Charles Rex
The Shirley Bacot Shamel
Chair
Fiona Simon
Sharon Yamada
Elizabeth Zeltser
The William and Elfriede
Ulrich Chair
Yulia Ziskel
Marc Ginsberg
Principal
Lisa Kim*
In Memory of Laura Mitchell
Soohyun Kwon
The Joan and Joel I.
Picket Chair
Duoming Ba
Marilyn Dubow
The Sue and Eugene
Mercy, Jr. Chair
Martin Eshelman
Quan Ge
The Gary W. Parr Chair
Judith Ginsberg
Stephanie Jeong+
Hanna Lachert
Hyunju Lee
Joo Young Oh
Daniel Reed
Mark Schmoockler
Na Sun
Vladimir Tsypin
VIOLAS
Cynthia Phelps
Principal
The Mr. and Mrs. Frederick
P. Rose Chair
Rebecca Young*
The Joan and Joel Smilow
Chair
Irene Breslaw**
The Norma and Lloyd
Chazen Chair
Dorian Rence
Katherine Greene
The Mr. and Mrs. William J.
McDonough Chair
Dawn Hannay
Vivek Kamath
Peter Kenote
Kenneth Mirkin
Judith Nelson
Robert Rinehart
The Mr. and Mrs. G. Chris
Andersen Chair
CELLOS
Carter Brey
Principal
The Fan Fox and Leslie R.
Samuels Chair
Eileen Moon*
The Paul and Diane
Guenther Chair
Eric Bartlett
The Shirley and Jon
Brodsky Foundation Chair
Maria Kitsopoulos
Elizabeth Dyson
The Mr. and Mrs. James E.
Buckman Chair
Sumire Kudo
Qiang Tu
Ru-Pei Yeh
The Credit Suisse Chair
in honor of Paul Calello
Wei Yu
Wilhelmina Smith++
BASSES
Timothy Cobb++
Acting Principal
The Redfield D. Beckwith
Chair
Orin O’Brien*
Acting Associate Principal
The Herbert M. Citrin
Chair
William Blossom
The Ludmila S. and Carl B.
Hess Chair
Randall Butler
David J. Grossman
Satoshi Okamoto
FLUTES
Robert Langevin
Principal
The Lila Acheson Wallace
Chair
Sandra Church*
Mindy Kaufman
PICCOLO
Mindy Kaufman
OBOES
Liang Wang
Principal
The Alice Tully Chair
Sherry Sylar*
Robert Botti
The Lizabeth and Frank
Newman Chair
ENGLISH HORN
CLARINETS
Mark Nuccio
Acting Principal
The Edna and W. Van Alan
Clark Chair
Pascual Martinez
Forteza*
Acting Associate Principal
The Honey M. Kurtz
Family Chair
Alucia Scalzo++
Amy Zoloto++
E-FLAT CLARINET
Pascual Martinez
Forteza
BASS CLARINET
Amy Zoloto++
(continued)
Instruments made possible, in part, by The Richard S. and Karen LeFrak Endowment Fund.
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BASSOONS
BASS TROMBONE
ORGAN
Judith LeClair
James Markey
Kent Tritle
Principal
The Pels Family Chair
Kim Laskowski*
Roger Nye
Arlen Fast
CONTRABASSOON
Arlen Fast
HORNS
Philip Myers
Principal
The Ruth F. and Alan J. Broder Chair
Stewart Rose++*
Acting Associate Principal
Cara Kizer Aneff
R. Allen Spanjer
Howard Wall
David Smith++
TRUMPETS
Philip Smith
Principal
The Paula Levin Chair
The Daria L. and William C. Foster
Chair
TUBA
Alan Baer
Principal
TIMPANI
Markus Rhoten
Principal
The Carlos Moseley Chair
Kyle Zerna**
PERCUSSION
Christopher S. Lamb
Principal
The Constance R. Hoguet Friends of
the Philharmonic Chair
Daniel Druckman*
The Mr. and Mrs. Ronald J. Ulrich
Chair
Kyle Zerna
HARP
Matthew Muckey*
Ethan Bensdorf
Thomas V. Smith
Nancy Allen
TROMBONES
KEYBOARD
Joseph Alessi
Principal
The Gurnee F. and Marjorie L. Hart
Chair
Daniele Morandini++*
Acting Associate Principal
David Finlayson
The Donna and Benjamin M. Rosen
Chair
Principal
The Mr. and Mrs. William T. Knight III
Chair
In Memory of Paul Jacobs
HARPSICHORD
Paolo Bordignon
PIANO
The Karen and Richard S. LeFrak
Chair
Eric Huebner
Jonathan Feldman
LIBRARIANS
Lawrence Tarlow
Principal
Sandra Pearson**
Sara Griffin**
ORCHESTRA PERSONNEL
MANAGER
Carl R. Schiebler
STAGE REPRESENTATIVE
Joseph Faretta
AUDIO DIRECTOR
Lawrence Rock
* Associate Principal
** Assistant Principal
+ On Leave
++ Replacement/Extra
The New York Philharmonic uses
the revolving seating method for
section string players who are
listed alphabetically in the roster.
HONORARY MEMBERS OF THE
SOCIETY
Emanuel Ax
Pierre Boulez
Stanley Drucker
Lorin Maazel
Zubin Mehta
Carlos Moseley
Steinway is the Official Piano of the New York Philharmonic and Avery Fisher Hall.
Programs are supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, New
York State Council on the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Arts.
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The Artists
Ted Sperling is a conductor, music director,
arranger, singer, pianist, and violinist. He was
music director and conductor of the first
Broadway revival of South Pacific, which won
seven 2008 Tony Awards and played to soldout houses at Lincoln Center Theater. In
2005 Mr. Sperling won Tony and Drama Desk
Awards (with Adam Guettel and Bruce Coughlin) for his orchestrations of The Light in the
Piazza, for which he was also music director.
Mr. Sperling was music director and conductor of the 2009 Tony Award–nominated
revival of Guys and Dolls. Other Broadway
credits as music director/conductor/pianist
include Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, The Full
Monty, How to Succeed in Business Without
Really Trying, Kiss of the Spider Woman, Angels in America, My Favorite Year, Falsettos,
The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Les Misérables,
Roza, and Sunday in the Park with George.
Mr. Sperling was an original cast member of
the Broadway musical Titanic. His off-Broadway credits as music director include A Man
of No Importance, Wise Guys, A New Brain,
Saturn Returns, Floyd Collins, Falsettoland,
and Romance in Hard Times.
Ted Sperling’s work as a stage director includes the world premieres of four musicals —
See What I Wanna See, V-Day, Charlotte:
Life? Or Theater?, and Striking 12 — as
well as a revival of Lady in the Dark. He
conducted the scores for the films The
Manchurian Candidate and Everything Is Illuminated, and directed the short film Love
Mom, starring Tonya Pinkins, which has been
shown in five international festivals. He was a
recipient of the 2006 Ted Shen Family Foundation Award for leadership in the musical
theater and is the director of the Music Theater Initiative at the Public Theater, as well as
creative director of 24-Hour Musicals.
Choreographer Andrew Palermo is the
artistic director and co-founder (along with
childhood best friend Taye Diggs) of
dre.dance, a New York City–based contemporary dance company. Since its premiere in
2005 dre.dance has earned a reputation for
authentically poignant and powerful dancing
with performances and residencies in New
York City and across the country.
Mr. Palermo also directs and choreographs
for stage and screen, with credits that
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include Ace (at The Old Globe Theater,
Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, Repertory
Theatre of St. Louis); Kristin Chenoweth at
Carnegie Hall; DanceBreak 2011 (Joan Weill
Center for Dance, New York); Bright Lights,
Big City (Prince Music Theater); Esther Demsack (Solo Performance Festival/The Public
Theater); Vices (Theatre Aspen); Aida (Music
Theater Wichita); Man of La Mancha (Sacramento Music Circus); Two Gentlemen of
Verona (University of Cincinnati–College Conservatory of Music); She Loves Me (Westminster Choir College); and Hair and The Wild
Party (Wichita State University).
Mr. Palermo’s performance career includes the original Broadway company of
Wicked; Annie Get Your Gun (revival); the
closing Broadway company of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying; John
LaChiusa’s Little Fish at Second Stage; national and international tours of West Side
Story; and performances at Carnegie Hall,
The Kennedy Center, The Hollywood Bowl,
and numerous regional theaters.
Ann Hampton Callaway, one of the leading champions of the great American songbook, is a singer, pianist, composer, lyricist,
arranger, actress, educator, television host,
and producer. She is best known for her Tony
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Award–nominated performance in the Broadway musical Swing! and for writing and
singing the theme song of the hit television
series The Nanny. She is a Platinum Award–
winning writer whose songs are featured on
six of Barbra Streisand’s recent CDs. She has
written songs with Carole King, Rolf Lovland,
and Barbara Carroll, to name a few.
Ms. Callaway has been a special guest
performer with Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz
at Lincoln Center Orchestra, and with Keith
Lockhart and the Boston Pops at Symphony
Hall and Tanglewood; she has also been featured in many Carnegie Hall tributes. She
has sung with more than 25 of the world’s
top orchestras and big bands, for President
Clinton in Washington, D.C., and at Russian
President Gorbachev’s Youth Peace Summit
in Moscow. She performed with her sister,
Broadway star Liz Callaway, in their awardwinning show Sibling Revelry at London’s
Donmar Warehouse; Boom!, their celebration
of the baby-boomer hits of the 1960s and
1970s, is slated to be recorded live this coming May during their run at Birdland.
Ann Hampton Callaway is featured on the
new Arbor Records’ CD Johnny Mandel: The
Man and His Music. Her recent solo CDs —
At Last, Blues in the Night, Slow, and Signature — have received critical acclaim. She
made her feature film debut opposite Angelina Jolie and Matt Damon in the Robert De
Niro film The Good Shepherd, performing the
standard “Come Rain or Come Shine.” She
recorded “Isn’t It Romantic?” and “The Nearness of You” in Wayne Wong’s Last Holiday,
starring Queen Latifah. She is currently writing
songs for the upcoming movie musical State
of Affairs, to be directed by Philip McKinley.
She has produced and hosted two television
specials with guests Liza Minnelli and Christine Ebersole for WTTW National.
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Victoria Clark recently starred as Mother
Superior in the hit Broadway musical Sister
Act, for which she received Tony, Drama
Desk, and Outer Critics Circle Award nominations and the Drama League honor. She
also received Tony, Drama Desk, and Outer
Critics Circle Awards, as well as a Drama
League honor for her portrayal of Margaret
Johnson in the Craig Lucas/Adam Guettel
musical The Light in the Piazza in 2005.
Most recently she appeared in the Nora and
Delia Ephron production Love, Loss, and
What I Wore, and in Lincoln Center Theater’s
production of When the Rain Stops Falling
(Drama Desk Award nomination). She also
performed in Ricky Gordon’s staged production of The Grapes of Wrath at Carnegie Hall
under the musical direction of Ted Sperling,
and appeared in Stephen Sondheim: The
Birthday Concert, presented by the New York
Philharmonic in March 2010.
Ms. Clark collaborated with Ted Sperling
for their limited engagement of The Vicki and
Ted Show at Feinstein’s at the Regency. She
appeared opposite Norm Lewis in Fascinatin’
Rhythm: Rob Fisher Celebrates the Gershwins. She headlined with David Hyde Pierce
in Night & Day: Rob Fisher Celebrates Cole
Porter, both part of Lincoln Center Theater’s
American Songbook series at the Allen
Page 33
Room, and starred in a rare concert staging
of the Kurt Weill musical The Firebrand of
Florence with the Collegiate Chorale at Alice
Tully Hall. Other credits include Juno and Follies at City Center’s Encores!; the New York
debut of Craig Lucas’s Prayer for My Enemy
at Playwrights Horizons; and the Roundabout
Theatre’s production of Christopher Durang’s
The Marriage of Bette and Boo. Ms. Clark’s
numerous recordings include the original cast
albums of The Light in the Piazza, Titanic, A
Grand Night for Singing, and Far From the
Madding Crowd; the new Broadway cast albums of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying and Guys and Dolls; The
Scarlet Pimpernel with Linda Eder; the sound
track for Cradle Will Rock; and sound tracks
of numerous Disney animated musicals.
Actor, singer, concert performer, and recording artist Jason Danieley most recently
starred on Broadway as Dan in the Tony- and
Pulitzer Prize–winning musical Next to Normal. His other Broadway credits include having created the role of Aaron Fox in Curtains
(for which he received an Outer Critics Circle
Award nomination); the title character in
Candide directed by Harold Prince (Theatre
World Award and Drama Desk nomination);
original Broadway and West End casts of
The Full Monty; and leading roles in A Tree
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Grows in Brooklyn and Strike Up the Band
for City Center’s Encores! series. Off-Broadway, he appeared in The Trojan Women: A
Love Story, Dream True, and Floyd Collins.
Regional theater appearances include Some
Lovers, The Highest Yellow (Helen Hayes
Award, Best Actor in a Musical), Beauty,
Casino Paradise, 110 in the Shade, and
Brigadoon for the Reprise concert series in
Los Angeles.
Mr. Danieley has appeared with leading ensembles such as the Boston, St. Louis, and
Utah symphony orchestras; Philadelphia, Minnesota, and BBC Pops Orchestras; New York,
Los Angeles (Hollywood Bowl), and Buffalo
philharmonic orchestras; and Orchestra of St.
Luke’s; and at the Grant Park and Ravinia
Festivals. He has also appeared with his wife,
Broadway star Marin Mazzie, in their He Said
She Said and Opposite You concerts at venues including Café Carlyle, Feinstein’s, and
Joe’s Pub. With rural jazz band The Frontier
Heroes he has released the debut recording,
Jason Danieley and The Frontier Heroes (on
the PS Classics label).
Marc Kudisch, seen most recently in Second Stage’s The Blue Flower and Lincoln
Center Theater’s A Minister’s Wife, garnered
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his third Tony and fourth Drama Desk Award
nominations for his role as Franklin Hart in 9
to 5. He received a Helen Hayes Award for
his performance in The Witches of Eastwick
at the Signature Theater, and was seen as
the Snake, Balladeer, and Narrator in the
Roundabout Theatre’s revival of The Apple
Tree, while performing as the Pirate King in
New York City Opera’s revival of The Pirates
of Penzance.
Mr. Kudisch has received Tony nominations
for his work in Thoroughly Modern Millie and
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. His other Broadway
credits have included Assassins (Drama
Desk nomination), Bells Are Ringing, and the
Public Theater’s productions of The Wild
Party, High Society, Beauty and the Beast,
and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor
Dreamcoat. Off-Broadway appearances have
included Girl Crazy and No Strings at City
Center’s Encores!, The Glorious Ones at Lincoln Center Theater, See What I Wanna See
at the Public Theater (Drama Desk nomination), The Thing About Men at the Promenade Theatre, and Tamara: The Living Movie
at Park Avenue Armory.
He has also appeared in opera, including
in Sondheim’s A Little Night Music at New
York City Opera and Los Angeles Opera. He
has appeared in concert with the Portland
Symphony Orchestra, The Philadelphia Orchestra, and at the Ravinia Festival, among
other ensembles and organizations.
Marc Kudisch’s television and film credits include Conrad Birdie in Bye Bye Birdie for ABC
and recurring roles on All My Children and Loving. He can be heard on the original cast
recordings of High Society, The Wild Party,
Bells Are Ringing, Thoroughly Modern Millie,
Assassins, See What I Wanna See, and Joseph
and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.
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Robert Morse has received Tony Awards
for both Best Actor and Best Actor in a Musical. The latter came in 1962 with his performance as J. Pierrepont Finch in the
Pulitzer Prize–winning Frank Loesser/Abe
Burrows/Bob Fosse musical How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, and
his dramatic nod came in 1990 with the oneman show Tru. The PBS presentation of Tru
later earned him an Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor.
Mr. Morse made his Broadway debut as
Barnaby Tucker in the original production of
Thornton Wilder’s The Matchmaker, directed
by Tyrone Guthrie and starring Ruth Gordon.
He repeated that performance in the film
version, starring Shirley Booth, Anthony
Perkins, and Shirley MacLaine. Those early
years also brought him two Tony nominations: for his performances in Say Darling
and as Richard in Take Me Along with Jackie
Gleason, Walter Pidgeon, and Eileen Herlie.
His success in How to Succeed in Business
on Broadway brought him to Hollywood for
the film version, which led to starring roles in
Tony Richardson’s The Loved One, A Guide
for the Married Man, Where Were You When
the Lights Went Out?, and The Emperor’s
New Clothes with Sid Caesar, as well as
countless television appearances.
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Robert Morse returned to Broadway as
Jerry/Daphne for the David Merrick production of Sugar, a musical version of the classic
film comedy Some Like It Hot, earning him the
fourth of his five Tony nominations. His other
theater credits include So Long, 174th Street
and Light Up the Sky at the Old Vic Theatre,
as well as Sugar Babies with Carol Channing,
Where’s Charley? with Edie Adams, Babes in
Toyland at California Music Theater, DuBarry
Was a Lady with Faith Prince for the City Center Encores! series, and as Cap’n Andy in Hal
Prince’s production of Show Boat. In 1998 Mr.
Morse appeared with Tony Roberts and Julie
Andrews in Divas of Broadway at Carnegie
Hall. He portrays Bertram Cooper on the television series Mad Men, for which he received
three Emmy nominations.
Mary Testa is a two-time Tony Award nominee, for her performances in revivals of
Bernstein’s On the Town (1998) and of 42nd
Street (2001). She was most recently seen
on Broadway in the revival of Guys and Dolls
(2009) and Xanadu (Drama Desk Award
nomination). Other Broadway credits include
Marie Christine, A Funny Thing Happened
on the Way to the Forum, The Rink, Marilyn,
and Barnum.
Her off-Broadway appearances include
Queen of the Mist; Tricks the Devil Taught
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Me; Love, Loss and What I Wore; Measure
for Measure; Regrets Only; See What I
Wanna See (Drama Desk and Drama
League nominations); First Lady Suite
(Drama Desk nomination); String of Pearls
(Drama Desk nomination); The Vagina
Monologues; From Above (Obie Award);
Lucky Stiff; The Knife; A New Brain; Tartuffe;
Scapin; In Trousers; and Daughters.
Ms. Testa’s film credits include The Bounty
Hunter, Four Single Fathers, Stay, The Out-ofTowners, Sleepers, Queens of the Big Time,
Two Bits, Stanley and Iris, and Eat, Pray, Love.
Television appearances include Two Broke
Girls, White Collar, Nurse Jackie, Electric Company, Life on Mars, and Sex and the City.
Welsh bass-baritone Bryn Terfel rose to
prominence when he won the Lieder Prize in
the 1989 Cardiff Singer of the World Competition. He has performed in all the great
opera houses of the world, and is especially
recognized for his portrayals of the title roles
in Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro and
Verdi’s Falstaff.
Highlights in recent years include his
debut in the role of Hans Sachs in Wagner’s
Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg for Welsh
National Opera; Wotan in Wagner’s Ring
Cycle at The Metropolitan Opera; and Leporello in Mozart’s Don Giovanni and Scarpia
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in Puccini’s Tosca at Milan’s Teatro alla Scala
and at The Met. Future plans include the role
of Wotan for the Royal Opera, Covent Garden; the title role in Wagner’s The Flying
Dutchman at Zurich Opera; Scarpia for
Bavarian Opera, Munich; and host of a fourday festival in London as part of the 2012
Olympic Games.
Bryn Terfel is a Grammy, Classical Brit, and
Gramophone award winner with a discography that encompasses operas of Mozart,
Wagner, and Richard Strauss, and more than
10 solo discs including Lieder, American
musical theater, Welsh songs, and sacred
repertoire. His album Carols & Christmas was
released in December 2010. In 2003 he was
made a CBE for services to opera in the
Queen’s New Year Honors list, and in 2006
was awarded the Queen’s Medal for Music.
John Bolton starred as The Old Man in A
Christmas Story: The Musical. Other recent
roles have included George in Same Time
Next Year and Harold Hill in The Music Man.
He was last seen on Broadway as Grady in
Curtains; was in the original Broadway companies of Spamalot, Contact, and Titanic; and
played the starring role of Finch during
Matthew Broderick’s leave of absence in the
1995 Broadway revival of How to Succeed
in Business Without Really Trying. He played
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Nathan Detroit in Guys and Dolls with the
Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, sang
Loesser favorites with Opera Omaha and the
Omaha Symphony, and originated the leading role of Hilario Gomez in Loesser’s final
musical, Señor Discretion Himself. Mr. Bolton
starred off-Broadway in The Bilbao Effect,
Five Course Love, and It’s Only Life. His television roles have included the recurring
character of Bruce Caplan on Gossip Girl,
and appearances in Boardwalk Empire, The
Good Wife, Law and Order: Criminal Intent,
and Ed, in addition to other appearances on
Live From Lincoln Center, Great Performances, and many more.
A native of Los Angeles, Bernard Dotson
began his career traveling nationally and internationally, singing music from the Walt
Disney songbook. In his work for the Disney
Company he has been featured on television
singing in English, French, German, and
Japanese. His New York appearances have
included the City Center Encores! productions of Merrily We Roll Along, Finian’s Rainbow, Encores! Broadway Bash, The
Broadway Gospel Choir, and Dreamgirls to
benefit the Actors Fund. Mr. Dotson has
been seen on Broadway in Finian’s Rainbow
(as First Gospeleer in the original cast of the
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revival), Chicago (Billy Flynn), Imaginary
Friends (Leo, original cast), Sweet Smell of
Success (Club Zanzibar singer, original cast),
Jesus Christ Superstar (original revival cast),
and the Tony Award–winning musical Ragtime (original cast). His regional, national, and
international tour credits include Smokey
Joe’s Café, Five Guys Named Moe, Joseph
and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat,
Xanadu, and Kiss Me, Kate. He can be heard
on six cast recordings and can be seen on
an upcoming episode of NBC’s Smash.
Michael Seelbach began his performing
career in his hometown of Cleveland, Ohio,
where he was a vocalist in the Cleveland Institute of Music’s Young Artist Program for
pre-college students. Immediately upon graduating from high school, he toured the country in the lead role of The Who’s Tommy for a
year, before landing in New York City. Over the
past 15 years Mr. Seelbach has appeared in
numerous Broadway and off-Broadway productions, including Wicked, Jesus Christ Superstar, Footloose, Hair (for City Center
Encores!), Floyd Collins, and Reefer Madness.
He has also performed on numerous national
tours and in regional productions. Mr. Seelbach sings regularly with the Broadway Inspirational Voices gospel ensemble.
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Jo Sullivan Loesser became a musical theater star with her legendary performances in
Frank Loesser’s The Most Happy Fella, and
opposite Lotte Lenya in the definitive New
York production of The Threepenny Opera. At
the pinnacle of her career she married composer Frank Loesser and left the stage, devoting herself to raising their two daughters,
Hannah and Emily. After Loesser’s death, she
returned to performing, honoring her husband
with the acclaimed salute, I Hear Music … of
Frank Loesser and Friends in New York City.
She has toured the country in Guys and Dolls,
re-created her role in The Most Happy Fella,
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and supervised and appeared in the Broadway revue Perfectly Frank.
Her regional performances have included A
Little Night Music and The King and I, among
others. She has appeared as guest vocalist
with the New York Pops at Carnegie Hall and
with major symphony orchestras across the
country. With her daughter Emily, she starred
in the off-Broadway revue Together Again
for the First Time, and toured in Where’s
Charley? They have also teamed up for concerts, club dates, and recordings. Ms. Loesser
served as artistic associate for the Broadway
revival of The Most Happy Fella, and for its
presentation at New York City Opera.
She has been instrumental in Broadway
revivals of Guys and Dolls and How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, and
has been the catalyst for and supervised several events surrounding the Frank Loesser
centennial, beginning with a celebration at
the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles. She
and other members of the Loesser family appear in bonus videos on the DVD release of
the film version of Guys and Dolls, and in the
PBS documentary Heart & Soul: The Life and
Music of Frank Loesser.
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New York Philharmonic
The New York Philharmonic, founded in 1842
by a group of local musicians led by Americanborn Ureli Corelli Hill, is by far the oldest symphony orchestra in the United States, and one of
the oldest in the world. It plays some 180 concerts a year, and on May 5, 2010, gave its
15,000th concert — a milestone unmatched by
any other symphony orchestra in the world.
Music Director Alan Gilbert, The Yoko Nagae
Ceschina Chair, began his tenure in September
2009, the latest in a distinguished line of 20thcentury musical giants that has included Lorin
Maazel (2002–09); Kurt Masur (Music Director
1991–2002, Music Director Emeritus since
2002); Zubin Mehta (1978–91); Pierre Boulez
(1971–77); and Leonard Bernstein (appointed
Music Director in 1958; given the lifetime title of
Laureate Conductor in 1969).
Since its inception the Orchestra has championed the new music of its time, commissioning
and/or premiering many important works, such
as Dvořák’s Symphony No. 9, From the New
World; Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3;
Gershwin’s Piano Concerto in F; and Copland’s
Connotations. The Philharmonic has also given
the U.S. premieres of such works as Beethoven’s
Symphonies Nos. 8 and 9 and Brahms’s Symphony No. 4. This pioneering tradition has continued to the present day, with works of major
contemporary composers regularly scheduled
each season, including John Adams’s Pulitzer
Prize– and Grammy Award–winning On the
Transmigration of Souls; Melinda Wagner’s Trombone Concerto; Esa-Pekka Salonen’s Piano Concerto; Magnus Lindberg’s EXPO and Al largo;
Wynton Marsalis’s Swing Symphony (Symphony
No. 3); Christopher Rouse’s Odna Zhizn; and, by
the end of the 2010–11 season, 11 works in
CONTACT!, the new-music series.
The roster of composers and conductors who
have led the Philharmonic includes such historic
figures as Theodore Thomas, Antonín Dvořák,
Gustav Mahler (music director 1909–11), Otto
Klemperer, Richard Strauss, Willem Mengelberg
(Music Director 1922–30), Wilhelm Furtwängler,
Arturo Toscanini (Music Director 1928–36), Igor
Stravinsky, Aaron Copland, Bruno Walter (Music
Advisor 1947–49), Dimitri Mitropoulos (Music Director 1949–58), Klaus Tennstedt, George Szell
(Music Advisor 1969–70), and Erich Leinsdorf.
Long a leader in American musical life, the Philharmonic has become renowned around the
globe, appearing in 430 cities in 63 countries on
5 continents. Under Alan Gilbert’s leadership, the
Orchestra made its Vietnam debut at the Hanoi
Opera House in October 2009. In February 2008
the Philharmonic, conducted by then Music Director Lorin Maazel, gave a historic performance
in Pyongyang, D.P.R.K., earning the 2008 Common Ground Award for Cultural Diplomacy. In
2012 the Philharmonic becomes an International
Associate of London’s Barbican.
The Philharmonic has long been a media pioneer, having begun radio broadcasts in 1922, and
is currently represented by The New York Philharmonic This Week — syndicated nationally and
internationally 52 weeks per year, and available at
nyphil.org. It continues its television presence on
Live From Lincoln Center on PBS, and in 2003
made history as the first symphony orchestra ever
to perform live on the Grammy Awards. Since
1917 the Philharmonic has made nearly 2,000
recordings, and in 2004 became the first major
American orchestra to offer downloadable concerts, recorded live. Since June 2009 more than
50 concerts have been released as downloads,
and the Philharmonic’s self-produced recordings
will continue with Alan Gilbert and the New York
Philharmonic: 2011–12 Season, comprising 12 releases. Famous for its long-running Young People’s
Concerts, the Philharmonic has developed a wide
range of educational programs, among them the
School Partnership Program that enriches music
education in New York City, and Learning Overtures, which fosters international exchange among
educators.
Credit Suisse is the Global Sponsor of the New
York Philharmonic.
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The Music Director
New York Philharmonic Music Director Alan
Gilbert, The Yoko Nagae Ceschina Chair,
began his tenure in September 2009, creating what New York magazine called “a fresh
future for the Philharmonic.” The first native
New Yorker to hold the post, he has sought
to make the Orchestra a point of civic pride
for both the city and the country.
Mr. Gilbert’s creative approach to programming combines works in fresh and innovative
ways. He has forged artistic partnerships, introducing the positions of The Marie-Josée
Kravis Composer-in-Residence and The Mary
and James G. Wallach Artist-in-Residence,
an annual three-week festival, and CONTACT!, the new-music series. In 2011–12 he
conducts world premieres, Mahler symphonies, a residency at London’s Barbican
Centre, tours to Europe and California, and a
season-concluding musical exploration of
space at the Park Avenue Armory featuring
Stockhausen’s theatrical immersion, Gruppen.
He also made his Philharmonic soloist debut
performing J.S. Bach’s Concerto for Two Violins
38B New York Philharmonic
alongside Frank Peter Zimmermann in October 2011. Last season’s highlights included
two tours of European music capitals,
Carnegie Hall’s 120th Anniversary Concert,
and Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen,
hailed by The Washington Post as “another
victory,” building on 2010’s wildly successful
staging of Ligeti’s Le Grand Macabre, which
The New York Times called “an instant Philharmonic milestone.”
In September 2011 Alan Gilbert became
Director of Conducting and Orchestral Studies at The Juilliard School, where he is the
first to hold the William Schuman Chair in
Musical Studies. Conductor Laureate of the
Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra
and Principal Guest Conductor of Hamburg’s
NDR Symphony Orchestra, he regularly conducts the world’s leading orchestras, such as
the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Amsterdam’s Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, and
the Berlin Philharmonic.
Alan Gilbert made his acclaimed Metropolitan Opera debut in 2008 leading John
Adams’s Doctor Atomic, the DVD of which won
a Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording in
2011. Other recordings have garnered
Grammy Award nominations and top honors
from the Chicago Tribune and Gramophone
magazine. Mr. Gilbert studied at Harvard University, The Curtis Institute of Music, and at Juilliard, and was assistant conductor of The
Cleveland Orchestra (1995–97). In May 2010
he received an Honorary Doctor of Music degree from Curtis, and in December 2011 he
received Columbia University’s Ditson Conductor’s Award for his “exceptional commitment to the performance of works by American
composers and to contemporary music.”
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