The Guys And Dolls Of Broadway Perform In Westfield This Week

Celebrity soloists to join NJ Festival Orchestra and PSEG for New Year’s Eve festivities.

On Wednesday, December 31st, at 7pm, under the baton of Maestro David Wroe, the New Jersey Festival Orchestra, in partnership with PSEG, presents one of New Jersey’s most popular New Year’s Eve musical celebrations. This year’s performance, The Guys and Dolls of Broadway, promises a superb revue of American musical theater classics presented in glorious symphonic splendor and features international guest vocalists direct from Broadway and beyond.

NJFO is thrilled to welcome tenor Jason Forbach who is currently appearing in the 2014 Broadway revival of Les Misérables after completing three years with the National Tour as Enjolras. He has also featured in starring roles at Paper Mill Playhouse, North Shore Music Theater, Kennedy Center, Carnegie Hall, Boston Lyric Opera, Fresno Grand Opera, and performed concert engagements with The Las Vegas Symphony, and Omaha Symphony Orchestra. He has three albums; A New Leading Man, Remembering To Dream and Revolutionary.

Baritone Gregg Brandt featured in the Broadway musical, A Tale of Two Cities and was in both the Broadway and national touring productions of Les Misérables (Enjolras). He has performed leading roles in many regional productions including, Into the Woods (Rapunzel’s Prince),Disney’s Beauty and the Beast (Beast), The Secret Garden (Archibald), Carousel (Billy), A Little Night Music (Mr. Lindquist), and A Musical Christmas Carol (Bob Cratchit), An avid concert performer, Gregg has been featured with numerous symphony orchestras including The New York Chamber Orchestra, The Pittsburgh Symphony, The Washington Symphony. Gregg recently finished his new Broadway CD entitled, “The Best of Broadway.”

NJFO will also be joined by New York based singer and actress Beth Kirkpatrick, a versatile young mezzo who will star in Papermill‘s upcoming presentation of Hunchback of Notre Dame. A recent winner of the Cincinnati Entertainment Award for her portrayal of Shawntel/Eve in Jerry Springer: the Opera, Ms Kirkpatrcik was part of the Les Miz 25th Anniversary tour and also starred as Mother Abbess in the Sound of Music Asia tour.

Tennessee native and soprano Analisa Leaming is about to make her Broadway debut in On the Twentieth Century with Kristin Chenoweth. Ms Leaming’s Off-Broadway/New York credits include Where’s Charley? and A Time for Singing (York Theatre). She has also has numerous starring roles in regional tours: Grace Farrell in Annie, Maria in The Sound of Music (Kansas City Starlight), Mabel in Pirates (MUNY), and Irene Molloy in Hello, Dolly! (North Shore Music Theatre) to name but a few. Ms.Leaming was a winner of the Lotte Lenya Competition for singers and has appeared in concerts with the Kurt Weill Festival both in NYC and several cities in Germany.

This year’s program reads like a Who’s Who of the best of American musical theater - Berlin, Hamlisch, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Lerner and Loewe, Boubil and Schonberg and Leonard Bernstein are just some of the superb composers celebrated in the show.

This not-to-be missed celebration, eagerly anticipated by much of central New Jersey, has been made possible through the generous sponsorship of PSEG as well as support from The NJ State Council on the Arts and The Westfield Foundation.

An event for the whole family, this friendly cabaret–style concert full of fun, surprises, musical finesse and virtuoso performances is sure to delight young and not so young alike. With a 7pm start and a convenient Westfield High School location with ample parking, the concert is a perfect beginning to New Year’s Eve revels.

TICKET INFORMATION

Audience members are advised to make reservations as soon as possible as tickets are selling fast and last year’s concert was a sell-out with no tickets available at the door. Tickets in advance are $40 for general admission and $70 for preferred seating. Tickets may be purchased on line www.njfestivalorchestra.org or by calling the box office at (908) 232-9400.