Posted on December 31, 2015 at 11:46 pm

Here’s what I got in 2015.

I got to conduct Parade at Avery Fisher Hall. I got to conduct The Trumpet of the Swan at the Halle Staatskapelle. I got to conduct three songs from Bridges with the Des Moines Symphony in front of 100,000 people. I got to conduct the overture to Honeymoon In Vegas (and many other things) with a kickass orchestra at the Royal Festival Hall in London. I got to conduct thirty performances of Bridges of Madison County on national tour. I guess I am a conductor now. (I alternate between two batons, one a gift from Robert Horn and one a gift from Thomas Murray.)

I got to play concerts at DePauw University, SUNY Fredonia, Portland OR, Birmingham AL, Huntsville AL, the St. Louis Cabaret Festival, Texas Christian University, the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, and nine glorious dates at SubCulture in NYC. I played on Good Morning America and on Good Day LA. (I became an official Yamaha Artist.)

I got Honeymoon In Vegas AND the score to You Can’t Take It With You on Broadway, My Paris at Goodspeed, Songs for a New World in London, Prince of Broadway in Tokyo, a television special on PBS in NY, and an actual real live movie of The Last Five Years released all over the world (and on Netflix starting next month, I’m told).

I got one of my songs name-checked in the biggest musical hit of the millennium, which was very cool. I wrote a commercial for a brassiere company. I quit a show. I started three new ones. I wrote songs for a musical starring an enormous ape.

I got to direct a concert of Georgia’s glorious music at 54 Below. I got to be the keynote speaker at the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival, I got to deliver a tribute to Hal Prince at Symphony Space, I got to give Stephen Sondheim an award at the Arden Theater in Philadelphia.

I got to see a lot of really spectacular theater and hear so much sensational music. I got to lay the groundwork for some almost unbearably exciting things in 2016 and beyond.

I got to watch my family grow and flourish in New York City, where one beautiful girl learned how to read, one beautiful girl grew into a confident and gifted performer, and one gorgeous woman produced, conducted, played piano, wrote music and lyrics, coached, mentored, negotiated, and created art the way she was born to do, and inspired me and challenged me over and over again with her dedication and ambition and talent.

I got to make music and theater with some of my favorite people in the world. And I got to do it all because I had the support of my incredible family, my invaluable collaborators and my wonderful friends.

In this scary and strange world, I feel safe and supported and endlessly, ridiculously grateful. Good night, 2015.