THE SONGS AND THE SOUL OF SAM COOKE

The 50th anniversary season of Lyrics and Lyricists™ will continue with You Send Me: The Song and Soul of Sam Cook on April 23, 24 and 25. Darius de Haas (Broadway: Rent, Kiss of the Spider Woman, Carousel, Shuffle Along. TV: The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel) dives into the world of Sam Cooke – his gospel roots and his triumphant 1964 engagement at the Copacabana; his romance classics (“You Send Me,” “Wonderful World,” “For Sentimental Reasons”) and a revolution anthem (“A Change Is Gonna Come”); and work as a pioneering entrepreneur and civil rights activist. The show features singers Crystal Monee Hall, Phillip Johnson Richardson and Avery Smith.

Darius credits his work providing the singing voice for Shy Baldwin in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel for illuminating his approach to Cooke’s music, getting inside his voice and arrangements without imitation and delving into the influences that created his sound. He also has a personal connection to Cooke and his generation of performers, through his mother, aunt and uncle. As the Andy and the Bey Sisters trio, they worked on the same circuit as Cooke in the early 60s.“It’s amazing that Sam Cooke is as relevant today as he was in the late 1950s-60s,” Darius notes. “And his music was part of an interesting evolution of changing musical tastes, from an older generation who loved Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra and Billie Holiday – his idols – and a younger generation who loved Little Richard and Elvis Presley ‘A Change is Gonna Come’ hits deeper than ever and has become one of our great musical anthems. His legacy, particularly through this song, is ultimately a representation of one black man’s effort to encapsulate an American experience of hardship, discrimination and struggle – but through it all he still lands on faith. deep as we can and we will do better.”Musician Credits:
Ravi Best, trumpet
Sherrod Barnes, guitar
Darius Christian, trombone
George Farmer, bass
Patience Higgins, Saxophone
Jason Thomas, drums

Lyrics and lyricists Season 2022

June 18, 19, 20

“ISN’T IT HAPPINESS?” » SONDHEIM ON LOVE
Designed, written, produced, hosted and directed by Ted Sperling
Stephen Sondheim’s shrewd, intelligent and emotionally intelligent exploration of the many facets of love is unparalleled in musical theatre. Tony Award winner and lyricist and lyricist favorite Ted Sperling conceived and hosts this show about love through Sondheim’s songbook. The incomparable songs tackle love in all its phases: its dizzying heights (“What More Do I Need”), its crushing heartache (“Not a Day Goes By”), its manic panic (“Getting Married Today” ) and the emotional ambivalence captured by Sondheim with perfect pitch (“Being Alive”). Hear them and more than a dozen others, including “Send in the Clowns”, “Barcelona” and “Move On”, in this one-of-a-kind celebration of the most innovative and influential composer-lyricist in the world. Broadway story.

A Brief History of Lyrics and Lyricists™

Lyrics & Lyricists began in 1970, at a time when there was no precedent for a program of first-person stories told by great living lyricists. Founding artistic director Maurice Levine himself “doubted at first that there would be an audience for such a program”, as he recounted in an interview with The New York Times. “But a discussion with lyricist EY (Yip) Harburg [“Over the Rainbow”] changed his mind. “I went to visit Yip,” Mr. Levine said, “and as he was talking I realized that I only had peripheral understanding of the lyrics. What he said was so exciting. that I knew I had to have an audience there. At first, Levine invited lyricists to talk about their work, which was played between talk segments. By 1983, however, Mr. Levine had exhausted the reserve of lyricists available to give the kind of illustrated talks the programs had become. His solution was to reconfigure the evenings by providing scripts and adding film clips to the live performances. The series developed a large loyal following and became the Y’s most successful musical series.” We try to give a sense of who the person is, what they stood for and what they tried to accomplish, as well as a certain amount of musicology and of music history,” he said. ‘In three words, we inform in an entertaining way.'”

Stephen Sondheim, Sheldon Harnick, Johnny Mercer, Sammy Cahn, Hal David, Jerry Herman, Carolyn Leigh and Lynn Ahrens are just a few of the famous songwriters who have appeared on the 92Y stage to “entertainingly inform”. original format of showcasing living legends to its now iconic mix of shows celebrating the best of Broadway musicals, exploring other facets of American popular music and examining the process of a living lyricist, these award-winning Broadway performers are just a few – some of the talented artists who have joined L&L to light up the American Songbook: Jonathan Groff, Philippa Soo, Brandon Victor Dixon, Lucie Arnaz, Billy Porter and Rebecca Luker.

92Y Health and safety protocolsa ??

MASKS MUST BE WORN BY EVERYONE from the age of 2, regardless of vaccination status.
ADULTS AND CHILDREN 5 YEARS AND OVER MUST PRESENT PROOF OF VACCINATION UPON ARRIVAL.