CARNEGIE HALL PRESENTS
The New York Pops

Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage
Friday, April 4th, 2008 at 8:00 PM

The New York Pops
David Charles Abell, Conductor
Starring Sutton Foster
With Rosena Hill and Aaron Lazar
The Clurman Singers

Music from Carmen Jones and Show Boat form the centerpiece of this tribute to theater legend Oscar Hammerstein II, which also features songs from his famed partnership with composer Richard Rodgers.

Sponsored by Aon

Program Notes:

Storytelling through music has always been a great passion of mine. That’s why I admire Oscar Hammerstein II so much: he was always searching for the perfect marriage of words and music. Great musical storytelling made Hammerstein’s Show Boat (1927) and Oklahoma! (1943) revolutionary, and he went on to write four more classic shows with composer Richard Rodgers which approach, and perhaps attain, musical theater perfection. He never stopped experimenting, and even his less-successful shows contain great songs. His lyrics, like those of his protégé Stephen Sondheim, teach us about ourselves while entertaining and delighting us at the same time.

In his shows, Hammerstein took on big themes and created big characters with big emotions. This required big orchestras and singers with big voices, which have now almost disappeared from Broadway’s theaters. Thanks to The New York Pops and tonight’s soloists, you will be hearing the original, BIG sound of Broadway’s Golden Age. Close your eyes, and you could be at the opening night of one of Oscar Hammerstein’s great musicals.

Oscar would have loved Sutton Foster. She’s the total package: singing, dancing, acting, and oozing charm. My theater-savvy New York nieces idolize her! He would have been equally delighted by our other stars as well: Rosena Hill and Aaron Lazar. They prove to me that the Broadway tradition of great singing does survive. Having these three wonderful soloists made it very easy for me to plan the program: I knew that whatever Rodgers, Kern, Romberg, or Bizet required of them, they could handle it.

How do great musical traditions get passed on? By great teachers, of course. During tonight’s concert, the Mr. Holland’s Opus Foundation will be presenting awards to five outstanding music teachers from all over the country. These are the people who inspire the professional musicians, as well as the audiences, of the future. The awards will be presented by another great singer we all know and love, Roberta Flack.

If you’ll forgive the pun on my last name, I’ll leave you with a quote from Oscar Hammerstein II about one of his favorite subjects, love:

“A bell is no bell till you ring it,
A song is no song till you sing it,
And love in your heart wasn’t put there to stay …
Love isn't love till you give it away!”

—David Charles Abell

The New York Pops
David Charles Abell, Conductor
David Charles Abell has been featured numerous times on PBS Television as the conductor of the Les Misérables Tenth Anniversary Concert at London’s Royal Albert Hall. Highlights of his career include collaborations with Dame Judi Dench, Bryn Terfel, Lea Salonga, Sarah Chang, Julian Lloyd Webber, Michael Feinstein, and Neil Sedaka. He has guest-conducted orchestras around the world including the Royal Philharmonic, BBC Symphony, London Philharmonic, Vienna Symphony, Hong Kong Philharmonic, and Seattle Symphony. His opera career encompasses productions at last year’s Spoleto Festival (Italy), the Washington Opera, England’s Opera North, and London’s Royal Albert Hall.

One of Leonard Bernstein’s last protégés, David has been singled out in particular as a fine interpreter of his music. He has recently conducted productions of West Side Story (Bregenz Festival) and Candide (Tokyo) as well as studio recordings of Bernstein rarities with the BBC Symphony Orchestra.

Next month, David will conduct the Classical Brit Awards ceremony on ITV television. He will be back in the US this summer, conducting Kiss Me, Kate at the Glimmerglass Opera Festival, and will return to Britain in September for BBC television’s Last Night of the Proms with the National Orchestra of Wales.

Born in North Carolina, David moved with his family to Manhattan at the age of two. After further moves to Philadelphia and Chicago followed by studies at Yale, he returned to New York to attend The Juilliard School and begin his professional career at the New York City Opera. In 1997 he moved to London, where he has conducted West End musicals, recordings, and television shows in addition to classical concerts with many of the major British orchestras.

THE NEW YORK POPS
The New York Pops was founded by Skitch Henderson in 1983 to give New York a permanent professional symphonic pops orchestra that would create greater public awareness and appreciation of America’s rich musical heritage. The orchestra is now the largest independent symphonic pops orchestra in the United States, enjoying one of the highest subscription renewal rates of any series at Carnegie Hall. The orchestra also tours throughout the world and performs free concerts in New York City parks through its Summermusic program. The New York Pops’s extensive education programs allow public schoolchildren to participate in numerous concert and music-making experiences: Salute To Music provides free instrumental lessons to more than 100 New York City junior high school students each year; Kids in the Balcony arranges for hundreds of children to attend all of The New York Pops’s concerts at Carnegie Hall; other education programs, such as Create a Symphony and Rhythm, Rhyme & Rap, teach skills such as composition, instrument building, percussion performance, and literacy. The New York Pops’s recordings include a recently reissued CD of the orchestra’s 1983 debut performance as well as From Berlin to Bernstein, The New York Pops Goes to the Movies, Christmas in the Country, Magical Moments from Great Musicals, and With A Song in My Heart—the Music of Richard Rodgers with Maureen McGovern. For the third year in a row in the summer of 2007, the orchestra performed the musical accompaniment to the Macy’s 4th of July Fireworks Spectacular, seen by more than 10 million television viewers nationwide on NBC. A recipient of grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts, and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, The New York Pops is a not-for-profit corporation supported solely through the generosity of individual donations, institutional grants, and concert income.

Starring Sutton Foster
Sutton Foster is currently starring on Broadway as Inga in the new Mel Brooks musical, Young Frankenstein. Prior to that, Sutton was Janet Van De Graff in The Drowsy Chaperone, for which she received 2006 Tony and Drama Desk award nominations and the LA Ovation Award, and Jo March in Little Women: The Musical, which led to nominations for the 2005 Tony, Drama Desk, and Outer Critics Circle awards. She is the recipient of the 2002 Tony, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle, and Astaire awards for her performance as Millie Dillmount in Thoroughly Modern Millie, a role she created in the 2000 La Jolla Playhouse premiere. Other Broadway credits include Les Miserables, Annie, The Scarlet Pimpernel, and Grease!. Regional productions include What the World Needs Now at the Old Globe Theatre, Dorian at the Goodspeed, The Three Musketeers at the San Jose Musical Theater, Nellie Forbush in South Pacific, and Sally in Me and My Girl, both at Pittsburgh CLO. She has toured nationally in The Will Rogers Follies, Les Miserables, and Grease!. She has appeared as Svetlana in Chess in Concert and as the “I’m the Greatest Star” Fanny Brice in Funny Girl in Concert, both Actors Fund of America benefits. On television, Sutton recently guest starred on the Disney Channel’s Johnny and the Sprites and on several episodes of the HBO series Flight of the Conchords. Sutton has performed in concert at Lincoln Center’s American Songbook series, with the Philly Pops, and The New York Pops at Carnegie Hall. She performed her solo act, June in January, at Joe’s Pub. Recordings include The Maury Yeston Songbook (PS Classics), Jule Styne in Hollywood, and the original cast recordings of Thoroughly Modern Millie, Little Women, The Drowsy Chaperone, and Young Frankenstein. Next season, Sutton will star as Princess Fiona in the new Dreamworks Broadway musical Shrek.

With Rosena Hill and Aaron Lazar
ROSENA HILL
Rosena Hill has performed on Broadway as one of the Church Ladies in The Color Purple, the Lady of the Lake in the Tony award–winning Monty Python’s Spamalot, Mrs. Stillman in Imaginary Friends, Ellen in the 2002 revival of Oklahoma, the Amanzi soloist in Riverdance on Broadway, Ozelia in Marie Christine at Lincoln Center, and Sarah’s friend in Ragtime. Ms. Hill also performed the role of Sarah in the national tour of Ragtime. Internationally, Ms. Hill has performed as a featured soloist with the Harlem Gospel Singers. Her regional performances include the role of Pam in Baby at the Papermill Theatre; Michelle in Dreamgirls at American Musical Theatre of San Jose, California Musical Theatre, and 5th Avenue Theatre; Dominique du Monaco in Lucky Stiff at the York Theatre; Armelia in Ain’t Misbehavin’ at Playhouse on the Green; the soprano in Brief History of White Music at Hanna Theatre Cabaret; Smart Women soloist in Imaginary Friends at the Globe Theatre; Sophie in 1001 Nights at George Street Playhouse; and Winnie Mandela in Mandela at Crossroads. Ms. Hill has performed Cinderella, Chess, Gypsy, La Cage aux Folles, Kiss Me, Kate with the Pittsburgh Civic Light Opera and Ballad of Baby Doe with the Opera Theatre of Pittsburgh. Carmen and La Boheme with the Sarasota Opera. Ms. Hill received her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.


AARON LAZAR
A native of Cherry Hill, New Jersey, Aaron Lazar garnered critical acclaim for his performance as Enjolras in the 2006 Broadway revival of Les Misérables, earning a 2007 Drama Desk Award Nomination for Outstanding Featured Actor in a Musical. Prior to this, Mr. Lazar starred on Broadway as Fabrizio Nacarelli in Lincoln Center’s Tony Award–winning production of The Light in the Piazza, a role he also played on PBS’s Live From Lincoln Center broadcast of The Light in the Piazza.

Other appearances on Broadway include lead roles in The Phantom of the Opera and the National Theatre’s revival of Oklahoma!, the national tour of The Scarlet Pimpernel, the pre-Broadway workshops of Dirty Dancing and Barry Manilow’s Harmony, and Gabey in the historic 2005 production of On the Town at the English National Opera in London.

Mr. Lazar’s television and film work includes The Notorious Bettie Paige (HBO) New Amsterdam (FOX), The Food Network Caters Your Wedding (Food Network), and The Light in the Piazza (PBS).

Mr. Lazar has recently made a stunning series of debuts with the following music directors and orchestras: Keith Lockhart and the Boston Pops; Marvin Hamlisch and The National Symphony Orchestra; Peter Nero and The Philly Pops; and Paul Gemignani and the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl, where he starred opposite Reba McEntire and Brian Stokes Mitchell in South Pacific. He also played the role of Adam/Silva in a televised concert of the Broadway-bound musical Imagine This at the base of Masada in the Judean Desert, with the Jerusalem Philharmonic. Tonight’s performance with The New York Pops marks Mr. Lazar's Carnegie Hall debut.

The Clurman Singers