CONCORA Performs Broadway at Trinity-on-Main on November 9, 2019

In February of this year, CONCORA presented a concert of choruses from Broadway shows at Trinity-on-Main, located in the heart of New Britain. The audience reaction exceeded all of our expectations; there was such a positive response to the concert that it was immediately clear that we needed to further explore this wonderful repertoire. Something else that was very clear—there is a great deal of musical theater talent within the ranks of our otherwise “classical” choir!

Last year’s concert was about this ensemble as a whole; this year’s concert is about giving all of our singers a chance to shine on their own. Well… almost on their own. The theme of this year’s concert is DUOS by DUOS, which means that almost every piece on the program will be sung by two soloists, and the songs were composed by a lyricist-composer combination. We also present a handful of ensemble numbers, many of which highlight individual voices throughout. The program includes numbers from the following Broadway Duos:

1950s-60s
Alan Jay Lerner & Frederick Loewe

Richard Rodgers & Oscar Hammerstein

Bernstein/Comden & Green and Leonard Bernstein & Stephen Sondheim

1960s-70s

John Kander & Fred Ebb

Jerry Bock & Sheldon Harnick

1980s-90s

Alan Menken & Howard Ashman

Benny Andersson/Björn Ulvaeus & Ulvaeus/Tim Rice

Cy Coleman & David Zippel

Lucy Simon & Marsha Norman

Lynn Aherns & Stephen Flaherty

2000s-present

Benj Pasek & Justin Paul

Robert Lopez & Jeff Marx

Benj Pasek & Justin Paul/Lin-Manuel Miranda

These composer-lyricist Broadway writing teams have been such an integral part of the history of American musical theater right from the beginning. In our concert this season, we survey teams from the 1950s up to last year. In many ways, their music in each case is emblematic of the period in which they were writing for Broadway. Lerner & Loewe and Rodgers & Hammerstein, for example, were as responsible as any other writers for establishing the lush, orchestra-driven scores of the 1950s and ‘60s large-cast musicals, with Bernstein (as always) writing in his own voice—not totally unlike his peers, but always individualistic.

As with all other aspects of society, Broadway experienced a sea change in the late 1960s and ‘70s. The economic downturn meant cost-cutting, so smaller casts were in, and although we aren’t exploring any of the pop-inspired shows of the era, the musical language is far edgier than it had been only a decade earlier. Kander & Ebb, with shows like Cabaret and Chicago, may have explored darker themes than the Bock & Harnick (Fiddler on the Roof, The Apple Tree), but in both cases, the emphasis is on the psychology of the characters and shifting societal norms.

The arrival of the huge London musicals Les Misérables and Phantom of the Opera, in combination with the physical rejuvenation of Broadway (often called its “Disneyfication”) brought back larger-scale musicals, often conceived on a grand scale. Speaking of Disney, Menken & Ashman wrote a number of scores for their animated movies; although The Little Mermaid wasn’t produced on Broadway until 2007, the score dates from the late 1980s. The writing team from ABBA, not otherwise known for musical theater, produced Chess from an initial concept album, much as Rice & Lloyd Webber had done previously with Jesus Christ Superstar. City of Angels and Ragtime are great examples of shows from this period that hearkened back to earlier eras, updating well-established musical styles. Women writers are still under-represented on Broadway, so Lucy Simon & Marsha Norman’s The Secret Garden, a setting of the famous children’s book, is an especially important work from the end of the twentieth century.

Just as shows like Pippin, Jesus Christ Superstar and Hair from the early 1970s brought cultural relevance to Broadway by incorporating the pop/rock sound of that era, so too have many composers in the last two decades melded the two musical worlds. Dear Evan Hansen and Hamilton are great examples of this trend. In 2018, their creators collaborated to create a mash-up of a song from each of those shows, released to raise money to combat gun violence. In a completely different vein, Lopez & Marx penned a hilarious (and often bawdy) look at the cultural trend of millennials’ “failure to launch”, blending a pop music vibe with an irreverent Sesame Street-like setting, complete with foul-mouthed muppets.

We are so pleased to welcome four singers from the Bushnell Theater’s Ensign-Darling Vocal Fellowship Program, a full scholarship vocal program for a small number of very talented and highly motivated young singers interested in classical and theatrical music. The program director, Joanne Scattergood Reeves, has been an insightful and collegial partner in this year’s concert, and we are so grateful to her for all of her help in enabling these gifted young people— Shailen Braun, Lauren Fitzgerald, Yumeko Stern, and Charlie Uthgennant— to join us for this year's Broadway concert on Saturday, November 9, 2019.

Tickets and more information available at https://tickets.vendini.com/ti...