Lincoln Center’s American Songbook has hosted dozens of singers since beginning in 1999, from Broadway luminaries André De Shields, BettyBuckley, and Laura Benanti to opera stars Stephanie Blythe, Frederica von Stade, and Deborah Voigt, all performing selections from the unassailable catalogue of American song.

However, this season’s AmericanSongbook curator, Clint Ramos—who is also Lincoln Center’s artist in residence—is taking what’s thought of as a fixed entity and showing audiences that, instead, it’s living, breathing, and, most importantly, growing. “I wanted to look at its history and how we can do it this time,” Ramos says. “There’s a premise that the Songbook is some kind of static thing, almost like a menu the artists pick from. I wanted to take a step back and break down those words: Who gets to label it ‘American’? And is ‘Songbook’ really just the canon, or is it how we create songs right now?"

Ramos chose artists for this year’s edition—pointedly titled Echoes of an Inheritance and running from March 18 to May 23—who cover a broad range of genres and, as he notes, are both “a representation of where we are but also a nod at this canon.” On opening night, Ella & the Duke deconstructs the legacy of Ella Fitzgerald and Duke Ellington through the vocals and musicmaking of Sandra St. Victor and Mark Batson. (March 18, The Appel Room)

Composer-singer Ingrid Michaelson brings a brand-new concert to American Songbook with Ingrid Michaelson & Friends: The Time and Space Between Us. ”[Her show is] about her fascination with memory and the distance between human beings created by time,” Ramos explains. “She said, ‘I wanted to go back in time to be with my 30-year-old parents’—it reflects where she’s at as a composer and performer.” (April 3, David Geffen Hall)

There’s also a collaboration with this season’s Lincoln Center Visionary Artist, Jeanine Tesori, in a reimagined musical version of Ntozake Shange’s classic “choreopoem,” for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf, which premiered 50 years ago. Ramos says, “Natalie Brown wrote an entire score for [Shange’s work], with an emphasis on how it feels to create a revival through another lens for a new generation of women.” Ellenore Scott, who choreographed Lincoln CenterTheater’s hit Ragtime revival, will direct. (April 6, Appel Room, Jazz at Lincoln Center)

Another highlight of the 2026 edition of American Songbook is the solo concert debut of Ruthie Ann Miles (March 19, Appel Room). Miles—a veteran of Broadway and Off-Broadway stages who won a Tony for the 2015 revival of The King and I—was recently in the world-premiere musical The Seat of Our Pants at the Public Theater, where she unsurprisingly stole the show. 

For her solo performance, Perfectly Imperfect, Miles knew what she didn’t want to do onstage. “I have an idea of what concerts should be like, and mine wasn’t going to follow the rules,” she says. “I didn’t want to do an autobiographical concert or a ‘highlighting my resume’ concert. (Instead, the show) will touch on parts of my life that highlight my voice in certain ways, along with being about motherhood, being a friend, being a wife, and all the different facets of who I am.”

Ramos asked Miles, whom he considers one of our greatest interpreters of American song, to be part of the series early on. “She’s one of those artists who works from within,” he notes admiringly. “As a human being and as a performer, she always takes the deep plunge, and you’re invited to share this dangerous quality of being a human.” 

For Ramos, curating the series is a musical balancing act. “American Songbook has always had a strong tradition of leaning into the musical theatre canon—I want to continue that and also bring in other points of view,” he explains. “We are still creating the Songbook in so many ways, and there are so many artists who have a point of view about what it should look like. And since [our] performances are free or pay what you choose, we can experiment and look at the Songbook as a question for the artists to answer or respond to.”

For more information about American Songbook, visit here.