CARNEGIE HALL PRESENTS
Standard Time with Michael Feinstein

Zankel Hall
Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008 at 7:30 PM

Michael Feinstein, Artistic Director

With Special Guests:
Alan Bergman
KT Sullivan
Ted Rosenthal
Aaron Weinstein
Mike Renzi, Piano

Sponsored by KPMG LLP

Michael Feinstein, Artistic Director
Michael Feinstein, one of the premiere interpreters of American popular song, has been a household name since the success of his 1988 one-man Broadway show, Isn’t It Romantic. He enjoys an active performance calendar, including major concert halls, symphony orchestras, intimate jazz clubs, and college campuses. More than a mere performer, he is nationally recognized for his commitment to the American popular song, both celebrating its art and preserving its legacy for the next generation.

Michael is currently producing a CD for his friend Liza Minnelli based on the music of her godmother Kay Thompson, the famed author, singer, and arranger. He will also host and serve as consultant on a new PBS film on vintage Hollywood “soundies,” and is producing a documentary feature on arts and society icon Kitty Carlisle Hart. He has written the score for a new stage musical, The Gold Room, opening soon in London’s West End.

His latest CD from Concord Records is Hopeless Romantics, a songbook of Harry Warren classics recorded with legendary jazz pianist George Shearing. In 2004, Michael completed a national tour with songwriting icon Jimmy Webb based on their CD, Only One Life—The Songs of Jimmy Webb. The disc was named one of the Ten Best CDs of the Year by USA Today.

In 2003, Michael received his fourth Grammy Award nomination for his Concord release, Michael Feinstein with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, his first recording with a symphony orchestra. The year before, Rhino/Elektra Music released The Michael Feinstein Anthology, a two-disc compilation spanning the years 1987 to 1996, featuring old favorites and previously unreleased tracks.

He hosted and produced The Great American Songbook, a PBS special and DVD set from Warner Brothers Home Video that traces the history of popular music in America. The program, which debuted at the Palm Springs Film Festival, was released last year. His own record label, Feinery, a new Concord subsidiary, released The Livingston & Evans Songbook, featuring Feinstein and special guest Melissa Manchester. Feinery will also record favorite current artists and restore recordings and musical broadcasts from the golden age of popular song, many of which showcase some of the nation’s most admired and enduring entertainers.

Michael’s Manhattan nightclub, Feinstein’s at the Regency, has presented the top talents of pop and jazz such as Rosemary Clooney, Steve Tyrell, Barbara Cook, Tony Danza, Glen Campbell, Diahann Carroll, Jackie Mason, and Dame Cleo Laine. He appears there for a sold-out holiday engagement every year. Last fall, he completed a sold-out two week engagement at the Theatre Royal Haymarket in London’s West End.

Michael started playing piano by ear when he was five. As a teenager, he played at weddings and parties in Columbus, Ohio. After graduating from high school, he worked in local piano lounges for two years, moving to Los Angeles when he was 20. Through the widow of legendary concert pianist-actor Oscar Levant, he was introduced to Ira Gershwin in July 1977. He became Gershwin’s assistant for six years, granting him access to numerous unpublished Gershwin songs, which he has since performed and recorded.

Gershwin’s influence provided a solid base upon which Mr. Feinstein has not only evolved into a captivating performer, composer, and arranger of his own original music, but has also become an unparalleled interpreter of music legends such as Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern, Johnny Mercer, Duke Ellington, and Harry Warren.

Through his live performances (from Hollywood Bowl to Carnegie Hall), recordings, film and television appearances, and his songwriting (in collaboration with Alan and Marilyn Bergman, Lindy Robbins and Carole Bayer Sager), Feinstein has been an important musical force during the past 15 years. In addition, he scored the original music for the film Get Bruce. His television credits include performances on 7th Heaven, Caroline in the City, Melrose Place, Coach, and Cybil.

In 1998 Feinstein became a Concord Records artist where he has recorded Michael and George: Feinstein Sings Gershwin, Big City Rhythms (with the Maynard Ferguson Big Band), the double-CD Romance On Film, Romance On Broadway, among others. The Library of Congress recently elected Michael to the exclusive National Sound Recording Advisory Board. He and other industry leaders recently met in Washington, DC, for a forum on safeguarding America’s musical heritage.

For more information, please visit michaelfeinstein.com.

With Special Guests:
Alan Bergman
KT Sullivan
Ted Rosenthal
Aaron Weinstein
Alan Bergman is half of one of the most respected songwriting teams in the Great American Songbook; 2006 marked the 50th anniversary of his collaboration with lyricist Marilyn Bergman. This milestone was recognized in November 2006 by Carnegie Hall at The Way They Are: Celebrating the Lyrics of Alan and Marilyn Bergman, and again on February 2, 2007, at Jazz at Lincoln Center. 2008 marked the 50th anniversary of their special collaboration as husband and wife.

Alan Bergman was born in Brooklyn, New York. He knew he wanted to be a songwriter at only age 11. He attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and went on to graduate with a degree in music from UCLA. Following graduate school, Bergman went to Philadelphia’s WCAU-TV where he became a television director, moonlighting as a songwriter. Mentored by Johnny Mercer, he returned to Los Angeles and devoted to his songwriting career full-time, encouraged by Leo Robin. Several years later, in 1956, Bergman met Marilyn Keith and began what was to be a partnership in writing and in life.

Along with Marilyn, Alan has been nominated for 16 Academy Awards, for four Emmys, two Grammy Awards, and one Cable Ace Award; he won three Academy Awards for the songs “The Way We Were,” “The Windmills of Your Mind,” and “Yentl.” He has also written television theme songs for Maude, Good Times, Alice, Brooklyn Bridge, and In the Heat of the Night. Alan and Marilyn’s first collaboration with Cy Coleman, “Portraits in Jazz: A Gallery of Songs” was commissioned by and performed in 2002 at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, and received widespread acclaim. They have also collaborated with Michel Legrand, Marvin Hamlisch, Dave Grusin, Henry Mancini, Johnny Mandel, Quincy Jones, John Williams, and James Newton Howard, resulting in countless important works for film, television, and recordings.

In the last several years, Alan has donned another hat—as a singer. He has appeared in the Oak Room at the Algonquin Hotel, Feinstein’s, and Joe’s Pub in New York. He also appears regularly at the Jazz Bakery and Vibrato in Los Angeles. Alan released his first album last year on Verve Records, Lyrically, a collection of songs written with Marilyn and other composers.


KT Sullivan has been a regular headliner at the Oak Room of New York’s Algonquin Hotel since 1992, and for several years at the Neue Galerie’s Café Sabarsky on Fifth Avenue and Live on the Park in London. She made her West End debut in her bilingual show Vienna to Weimar at the Jermyn Street Theater in 2004, and has annually returned in shows featuring music ranging from Noel Coward to Comden and Green.

Sullivan has appeared at Carnegie Hall, Town Hall, Lincoln Center and the Caramoor Festival. She has also performed at the Spoleto Festival, the New York Historical Society, La Nouvelle Eve in Paris, the Chichester Festival in the UK, and several times at The Adelaide Festival in Australia. Sullivan was also a guest star on Garrison Keillor’s Prairie Home Companion.

In addition, Sullivan has seven albums in worldwide distribution on the DRG label, including Crazy World (voted number one in the vocals category of Tower Records’ Pulse Magazine) and Live From Rainbow and Stars: The Songs of Bart Howard, which won Backstage Magazine’s Bistro Award. Her latest CD with Mark Nadler and saxophonist Loren Schoenberg, A Swell Party, RSVP Cole Porter, was recorded during an extended engagement at the Hal Prince Theater in Philadelphia. She and Nadler have also recorded their multiple award-winning Always: The Love Story of Irving Berlin, winner of the Nightlife Award for Best Musical Revue.

Ms. Sullivan’s Broadway credits include The Three Penny Opera with Sting, the play Broadway directed by George Abbott, and the leading role in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. She also played featured roles in the national tour of Annie Get Your Gun, as well as the workshop production of Easter Parade with Tommy Tune. Off-Broadway, Sullivan appeared in Splendora, A My Name is Still Alice; with Mark Nadler, she also wrote and starred in American Rhapsody: George Gershwin to the World, receiving nominations for the Drama Desk and Lucille Lortel Awards, and winning the MAC Award for Best Musical Revue. Sullivan’s regional theater credits include the Old Globe Theater, Hartford Stage Company, Municipal Opera of St. Louis, Missouri Rep, Goodspeed Opera House, Paper Mill Playhouse, and the Great Lakes Theater Festival, where her roles have ranged from Frances in Light Up The Sky and Carrie in Carousel, to Meg in Brigadoon and Billie Dawn in Born Yesterday.

On television, Sullivan guest-starred on Police Squad, Night Court, Remington Steele, Hardcastle and McCormick, Cabaret 13 with Michael Feinstein, and In Performance at the White House with Mary Martin. Liza Minnelli presented Sullivan with the Manhattan Association of Cabarets’ Outstanding Female Vocalist Award; Irish America Magazine named her one of its Top 100 Irish-Americans.

Ted Rosenthal entered the international spotlight by winning first prize in the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Piano Competition in 1988. He has since had a prolific recording career, and recently released his 11th CD as a leader. His recent CD, One Night in Vermont, is a duo with legendary trombonist Bob Brookmeyer. His most recent solo album, The 3 B’s, received four stars from DownBeat Magazine. It features renditions of the music of Bud Powell, Bill Evans, and his strikingly original improvisations on Beethoven themes.

Rosenthal toured and recorded with the Gerry Mulligan Quartet. As a busy sideman, he was a member of the Art Farmer Quintet, has performed with the Jon Faddis, Benny Golson and James Moody Quartets, and the Phil Woods and Joe Chambers Quintets. He has also performed with Wynton Marsalis and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, the Carnegie Hall Jazz Band, and the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra. Rosenthal is the pianist of choice for many top jazz vocalists, including Helen Merrill, Mark Murphy, and Ann Hampton Callaway. Rosenthal has appeared on Marian McPartland’s “Piano Jazz” on National Public Radio and performed with David Sanborn on NBC’s Night Music. A recipient of three grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, Rosenthal regularly performs and records his compositions, including jazz tunes and large-scale works. “The Survivor,” a concerto for piano and orchestra, has been performed by the Manhattan Jazz Philharmonic and the Rockland Symphony Orchestra, with Rosenthal at the piano.

Other classical/jazz crossover performances include solo and featured appearances with the Boston Pops, the Baltimore Symphony, the Kansas City Symphony, the Rochester Philharmonic, the Detroit Symphony, the Tucson Symphony, and the Indianapolis Symphony. Rosenthal received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the Manhattan School of Music. He is active in jazz education, and is a faculty member at Manhattan School of Music and The Juilliard School. In addition, Rosenthal presents jazz clinics throughout the world, often in conjunction with his touring. Rosenthal was a contributing editor for Piano and Keyboard Magazine and has published piano arrangements and feature articles for Piano Today and The Piano Stylist.

For more information, visit tedrosenthal.com.

Aaron Weinstein is quickly earning a reputation as one of the finest jazz violinists of his generation. As a featured soloist, Aaron has performed at Lincoln Center, the Wolf Trap Center for the Performing Arts, Chicago’s Orchestra Hall, the JVC Jazz Festival, Blue Note, the Iridium, Birdland, and abroad at jazz festivals in France, England, Israel, and Iceland.

Weinstein has performed and recorded with and an array of jazz masters, including Howard Alden, Scott Hamilton, Dick Hyman, Jane Monheit, Les Paul, Ken Peplowski, Houston Person, Bucky Pizzarelli, John Pizzarelli, Annie Ross, Warren Vaché, Frank Vignola, and Claude “Fiddler” Williams, as well as New York Pops founder and conductor Skitch Henderson. Weinstein is a recent graduate of the Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts, where he was awarded a full four-year talent-based scholarship. While still in high school, he founded New Trier High School’s Stephane Grappelli Tribute Trio, voted as the nation’s best high school instrumental jazz group by DownBeat magazine in 2002. Weinstein has won various competitions including the 1998 and 2001 Illinois State Fiddle Championships, making him the youngest performer ever to hold this title.

With the release of his Arbors Records debut, A Handful of Stars, Aaron has become the youngest jazz musician to have recorded as leader for this prestigious traditional jazz record label.

Mike Renzi, Piano
Michael A. Kerker has been Director of Musical Theatre for ASCAP since 1990. In addition to coordinating ASCAP’s Musical Theatre Workshop in New York, Mr. Kerker works with Walt Disney Feature Animation to produce the ASCAP/Disney Musical Theatre Workshop in Los Angeles. Together with Michael Feinstein, Mr. Kerker produces a regular series of concerts featuring contemporary songwriters at Carnegie Hall, of which tonight’s concert is a part. He is also currently producing a series of seminars and concerts at the Kennedy Center showcasing some of the leading composers and lyricists of the American musical theater. Mr. Kerker also produces the ASCAP Foundation Jerry Herman Legacy Program, which is a series of nationwide concerts, seminars, and master classes featuring the legendary Broadway songwriter. Mr. Kerker is a member of the Board of Directors of The Songwriters Hall of Fame, the Society of Singers, and The Johnny Mercer Foundation.