On April 27, Jason Robert Brown held his 58th SubCulture residency concert via live stream with special guests Ariana Grande and Shoshana Bean. The concert experience was short but robust, offering full orchestrations on some of the composer's beloved and newer works.
Grande presented a singular highlight in the evening when she sang her rendition of “Still Hurting” from Brown’s two-hander The Last Five Years. Watch her performance in the video above.
The concert also featured performances of Brown’s songs “Sanctuary” featuring Georgia Stitt, Susannah Brown, and Molly Cate Brown, “Melinda,” “The Hardest Hill” featuring Bean, “I Love Betsy” from Honeymoon in Vegas, and “All Things In Time.” Watch the full concert in the video below, only available to stream through May 4.
The concert served as a fundraiser for SubCulture (the downtown music venue home to the JRB Residency) and its staff during the shutdown; the event was punctuated with video messages from the staff about what they miss most and what they are grateful for in this moment.
Brown was joined by his house band: guitarist Gary Sieger, violinist and violist Todd Reynolds, bassist Randy Landau, cellist Mairi Dorman-Phaneuf, and percussionist Jamie Eblen. Produced by Marc Kaplan and Brown, the concert featured audio production, mastering, and mixing by Jeffrey Lesser; production by Daniel Barbee, Craig Bundee, William Hansen, and Brandon Kienzle; editing by Jodi Beinstock and Alan McIntyre Smith; additional video by Barbee, Betsy Capes Kaplan, Molly Cate Brown, Jenna Grossano, HuiMei Landau, and Katherine Livolsi-Landau.
Enjoy the full concert and click here to donate.