Broadway composer Stephen Sondheim will be honored by the New York Festival of Song at its April 19 gala in New York, marking the start of its 29th season.
Among the special performing guests will be Pamela Myers, an original cast member of Sondheim’s 1970 musical Company who introduced the song “Another Hundred People,” which she will recreate at the event. Myers will also perform “Broadway Baby” from Sondheim’s Follies, and will duet with Ron Raines on “You Must Meet My Wife” from A Little Night Music.
The concert is scheduled to begin at 7 PM at Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, 154 West 57th Street in Manhattan, followed by dinner at the 21 Club at 21 West 52nd Street.
Among other scheduled performances (subject to change):
Ron Raines: “The Road You Didn't Take” from Follies
Meredith Lustig: “The Girls of Summer” from the unproduced Girls of Summer
Theo Hoffman: “Not While I’m Around” from Sweeney Todd.
Meredith Lustig and Theo Hoffman: “Two Fairy Tales” cut from A Little Night Music and “So Many People” from Saturday Night
Greer Grimsley and Luretta Bybee: “Epiphany,” “Have a Little Priest,” and “By the Sea” from Sweeney Todd
NYFOS Artistic Director Steven Blier, who will serve as host and piano accompanist for the evening, said, “I’ve always been dazzled by Stephen Sondheim’s songs, and my appreciation has only increased with the years. His lyrics have an uncanny precision—every rhyme, every metaphor honed to the sharpest point. His words are welded to music of enormous variety—by turns lyrical, declamatory, sentimental, ironic, and steely. And he is capable of every emotional temperature, from the blazing heat of Sweeney Todd to the aloof chilliness of Georges Seurat. I love and respect Sondheim’s art, where intelligence merges with fire to create eloquence of the highest order. It will be a thrill to celebrate his magnificent work."
Among recent New York Festival of Song events was the November 2016 Rodgers, Rodgers & Guettel concert.
Gala tickets, which include the concert and dinner range from $750 to $15,000 (the latter for a premium table of ten). Click here to order tickets, or call (646) 230-8380.
