Posted on March 5, 2006 at 10:48 am

Back on March 19, 2005, I was honored to participate in a concert at New York’s Symphony Space in tribute to Stephen Sondheim on the occasion of his 75th birthday. From 10 am to 10 pm, a host of incredible talents graced the stage and sang Sondheim, played Sondheim, talked about Sondheim, talked with Sondheim, and generally did everything you can imagine doing with a Sondheim song. My principal contribution was to write three choral arrangements for the Juilliard Choral Union, conducted by the wonderful Judith Clurman: “Merrily We Roll Along” (adapted from an earlier arrangement I had done for Hal Prince’s 65th birthday), “The Hills of Tomorrow” (adapted from an earlier arrangement I had done for Daisy Prince’s wedding) and an arrangement of “Sunday” for choir and orchestra to be performed as the finale to this amazing day. Doing an arrangement of “Sunday” is daunting, especially because Michael Starobin’s original orchestration is so magnificent and perfect, but I worked my pencil until it was just a black nub between my fingers and I’m very proud of the work I did. (Starobin said very nice things about it to me as well.) And now that finale is available on CD, as part of the “Wall to Wall Stephen Sondheim” commemorative CD, available through the store at SymphonySpace.org. Among the other incredible performances on the CD: Donna Murphy singing the living crap out of “Losing My Mind,” Carolee Carmello and Gregg Edelman doing a superlative “Move On”; Liz Callaway’s definitive “What More Do I Need?”; and thirteen other great songs. And your purchase goes to support similar programs at Symphony Space. Enjoy!
The Symphony Space Store