Jason Robert Brown

Posted on November 1, 2024 at 8:13 pm

Let’s start this story by referring to the picture below this paragraph. That frame of video represents the real beginning of my career in the New York theater. See that dark-haired kid on the right at the piano, onstage at New York’s legendary Carnegie Hall on June 10, 1992? That’s all 6’2″ and 120 pounds of me serving as the musical director for the vocal group The Tonics, who were invited to perform in an enormous star-studded celebration of the work of Stephen Sondheim that was not only presented to a sold-out audience at Carnegie but also made into a TV special and a 2-CD set. (You can watch our number here, and honestly the mix is better on the CD if you can find it – the vocal arrangement was created by the singers, and I did the orchestration.)

This past Friday, forty pounds heavier and considerably grayer, I again took the stage at Carnegie Hall, this time leading a concert that celebrated all the amazing and unlikely things that have happened in my life and career in the past thirty-two years, featuring many of the people who helped create those moments as well as some new friends that I can’t wait to collaborate with on future projects.

Shoshana and I were hanging out in my dressing room before the show started, and she said, “Is this the greatest night of your life?” I’m never especially comfortable with hyperbole, so I don’t really have an answer to that; I’ve had a lot of nights in my life that made me feel proud and grateful and so connected to my community, my purpose, my understanding of the world. But Friday night felt like a demarcation, a real transition from one part of my life to another, and I think it’s a real blessing if we get to be aware of those moments. I’ve done hundreds of concerts, but I mean this: I felt changed by what happened on stage and in the audience at Carnegie Hall. It was – forgive me for not having a more specific term – something very special.

Daisy and I spent several hours toiling over the set list, trying to balance older, more familiar songs with new material, making sure we allowed each guest performer to shine in their own particular way, taking advantage of the orchestra, the occasion, the sheer size of the space – when you stand on stage at Carnegie, that balcony looks like it might be in another borough. Daisy said we should start the show with something epic, and I suggested “Coming Together.”

“Coming Together” was written in the week following the 9/11 attacks. Manhattan went eerily quiet in the aftermath of the collapse of the World Trade Center, and in that silence, this song began to sing itself to me. I don’t remember if I had a specific singer in mind for the soprano solo, but for several years after I wrote it, the peerless Adriane Lenox performed it, and then the magnificent Lillias White stamped it with her inimitable style when we made the Wearing Someone Else’s Clothes album. The minute we decided on this song for the opening, I knew Shoshana had to do it with me, but she initially refused, saying “I don’t sing like that.” Which was a weird thing to say. Because obviously, Shoshana totally does sing like that. But what could I do? So I took a deep breath and waited to see if she’d change her mind. Six days later, in the middle of one of her Hell’s Kitchen matinees, she texted me, “I’ll do it.” I could tell you how seismic and cathartic her performance was, but I think I’ll just let Kelli O’Hara’s reaction speak for us all:

The last time I performed at Carnegie, it was actually a tribute to Kelli O’Hara, so it was particularly fitting that she could join us this time. Since The Bridges of Madison County closed in 2014, Kelli and I have gotten to perform together a couple of times, but I’m pretty sure this was the first time in ten years that she and I have done “To Build A Home” with the full orchestration and choir, and it was as comfortable and as natural as stepping into your favorite slippers. I wrote every note of Francesca’s part specifically for Kelli’s voice, and the second she opened her mouth to sing, “There’s a boat…”, it was like coming home.

So much of my life as a performer is still colored by the six unmatchable years I spent doing concerts at SubCulture in lower Manhattan, and “Melinda,” which I wrote the night before the second concert of that residency, became that series’ unofficial theme song. Getting to do “Melinda” with Todd playing his monster solo while the full orchestra slammed away was absolutely intoxicating.

I’ve been doing “Boat” in my concerts for a couple of years now, but I’ve had to be coy about where it’s from. Finally, at this concert, I could announce that “Boat” is part of a musical I’m writing with the wonderful Doug Wright based on Andrew Sean Greer’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Less. I got to do three songs from Less at the show, one of which has never been performed anywhere in public. And in a world where Broadway orchestras get smaller every year, I got to bring these songs to life with a 26-piece orchestra, to which my producer drily responded, “I always encourage people to dream big.”

(Special bonus: Andrew Sean Greer actually came to the show, and I finally got to meet him in person! What a kick!)

I met Ben Platt when he auditioned for the original Los Angeles production of 13 in 2006. (When we offered him a role, he had to decline because the run coincided with his actual Bar Mitzvah.) I have been so proud to watch him take over the world, always true to who he is, always committed to the things that matter to him, and always led by that extraordinary voice. For this concert, I asked him to take on “See Yourself,” Ethan’s “I want” song from The Connector, which he sang as though it had been written for him. Then came one of my favorite parts of the evening, when he and I did a version of “It’s Hard to Speak My Heart,” a song Ben performed 168 times on Broadway, with just piano and voice, the two of us guiding and supporting each other with the utmost delicacy. A real gift.

When I first asked Raúl Esparza to join me for a SubCulture concert in 2019, he responded that he didn’t really like doing “concert work,” he mostly loves the rigor of exploring and questioning and finding out how to bring a character to life. I assured him there would be plenty of opportunity to do just that when we worked together, and that SubCulture show was a wild, joyous ride. Now, five years later, I threw two huge challenges at Raúl: Britt Craig’s original introductory song from Parade, “Big News!”, which has been cut from the show since 2007 but remains a raucous tour de force for any singing actor (as well as having the best orchestration anyone’s ever created for one of my songs, courtesy of Don Sebesky); and the night’s only world premiere, the emotional core of Less, a song called “Where I Belong.” Getting to burrow into those songs with Raúl, sometimes syllable by syllable, was one of the most satisfying and stimulating parts of the entire process of putting this concert together. And the performances that Raúl came up with were sheer brilliance.

It’s possible that Heather Headley and I met at some point in the past twenty-five years, maybe at some gala or benefit, but we really didn’t know each other at all when I reached out to ask her to be part of this concert, and since she lives in Chicago with her family and rarely performs in New York, I knew it wasn’t a simple request. To my delight and amazement, she said yes, and proceeded to confirm every glorious thing I suspected was true about working with such a legend. She is connected at a cellular level to each word that comes out of her mouth, and the honesty and the passion and the conviction she brings is something miraculous to behold. From her exuberant disco riffing in “Invisible” to her heart-stopping, soul-filled keening in “It All Fades Away,” Heather not only fulfilled my musical dreams but also confirmed how much the theater world has been missing without her in it. A singular artist, without question.

The top of the second act of the show is traditionally the time for an orchestral showpiece! Honeymoon In Vegas doesn’t get as much attention as the rest of my catalogue, which is a shame because I love every measure of it. One of the things I treasure most is that it gave me my first opportunity to write a proper old-school musical comedy overture, orchestrated to a fare-thee-well by Sebesky, and it was the perfect piece to let our instrumental virtuosi cut loose. It was the only time in the concert I actually got to stand on the podium and conduct (Georgia happily took on the piano part for this one), and that feeling of pure uncomplicated happiness has provided more than enough fuel to get me through the end of the year.

Back when Georgia was pregnant with our first daughter, we went to a concert at UCLA where Abe Laboriel, the world-famous bassist, did a duet with his son, the drummer Abe Laboriel Jr. When I was growing up, I was the only musician in my house, so watching that father and son play together, tossing ideas around and laughing as they responded, topping each other but supporting each other at the same time, I thought out loud how amazing it must be to grow up in a musical family, for parents and their children to be able to communicate in this whole other language, to share an emotional and creative vocabulary that is in some way inaccessible to anyone else in the world. Well, I guess the fetus in Georgia’s belly was listening. There are no words to describe the sensation of singing with Georgia and Molly and Susannah on stage at Carnegie Hall, or maybe there are too many words, maybe it’s every word. Getting to share what I do with these luminous, creative, endlessly funny and deeply intuitive musicians is one of the great privileges of my life.

And speaking of family, here’s another story: I showed up at a party at someone’s house in the Hollywood Hills one day about eighteen years ago and I walked away with my musical soulmate and partner-in-crime. Shoshana Bean and I have sung together all over the world, in piano bars, basements, Broadway theaters, opera houses, penthouses, recording studios, private islands, the Library of Congress, and pizza parlors, and every time – every single time – she makes magic happen with my songs. Friday night was in some ways just like every other performance we do together, and in other ways it was singular and holy. I don’t know how to explain it, at this point in the essay it should be clear that I don’t know how to explain anything. The point is I’m going to keep making music with Shoshana Bean until she blocks my phone number and moves to Latvia. And even then.

I’ve been working on Midnight In The Garden of Good and Evil for five years, and that whole time, my main question has been “Who on Earth could play The Lady Chablis?” There was only ever one answer. Collaborating with J. Harrison Ghee on bringing this icon back to life has been a privilege and an inspiration and an education every day, and giving them the opportunity to make their Carnegie Hall debut makes me feel like Santa Claus. Even though it was only ten p.m. when they hit the stage, they started off with the 11-o’clock number from Less, a song that I hope would make Kander and Ebb proud; and then they did the 11-o’clock number from Midnight, a song that wouldn’t exist without J. Harrison Ghee and is filled with everything that makes them a singular and iconic performer. Also: the blazer dress! I surrender.

“The Western Wall” (from The Connector) is one of my proudest achievements, a 7-minute fantasia that combines pretty much everything I know about writing for the theater. Someone on Instagram referred to this version as “The Western Wall XL,” which just about sums up the experience of this exquisite wailing choir (featuring solos by Tasha Michelle and Martin Sola), this powerhouse orchestra, Jamie Eblen’s protean drumming, Hiddy Honari’s masterful oud-inspired guitar playing, and the dueling dazzling solos of Alison Shearer on flute and Todd Reynolds on violin.

I remember one particular day in 2010 with complete clarity. Our agents had set me and Marsha up with a Broadway producer to talk about The Bridges of Madison County, and they suggested that we bring Kelli O’Hara along with us. Marsha and I showed up at the producer’s office thinking we looked professional and serious, you know, writers looking like writers in our glasses and artfully shabby coats, and then in walked Kelli, glowing, ethereal, some uncanny combination of Iowa farm wife and supermodel, and all I can tell you is that we never had to take another meeting about Bridges after that. Francesca was sitting inside her the whole time waiting to emerge. When she sang “Always Better” on Friday night, I got to see something an author rarely gets to see, which is how a character evolves over more than a decade when the same actor keeps investing in it, keeps refining it, changing how the character moves as she gets older, as she watches her own children growing, as she moves through the world with that character always in some corner of her mind. It is my New Year’s wish for 2025 that Kelli will get to bring Francesca back to life on stage again some time soon. In the meantime, what a profound thrill to experience it at Carnegie Hall.

I think everyone reading this knows that Billy Porter was in the original cast of Songs for a New World, that I wrote several of those songs just for him, that he inspired me and challenged me in a way that no other singer ever had at that point in my life, and that he then was forbidden from recording the original cast album by his pop record label. The last time I got to make music onstage with Billy was probably in 2000 at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, and since then we’ve both been on our own paths, never quite intersecting at the right time. For this concert, our first performance together in over twenty years, I asked Billy to sing something of mine that he hadn’t sung before, and his incisive, generous, wounded and healing performance of “All Things In Time” reminded me – as though I could ever have forgotten – that some people carry in their bones and brains and throats all the material they need to translate what I write from some dots on a page into rich, full humanity. Billy was the first of those people in my life, and it means the universe to me that we got to share a stage again after all this time.

Here’s the final thing I want to say: When you embark on a concert that is this grand and ambitious and this personal, you can’t do it alone – there’s a producer and a director and agents and copyists and assistants and media coordinators and sound designers and contractors and layers and layers of people all singularly dedicated to making everything work – but I had one secret weapon. Before I started every song, I looked up from the piano at Georgia Stitt – my wife, my partner, my most trusted musical collaborator – and I knew everything was in the best possible hands. Four nights before the concert, we celebrated our 21st wedding anniversary, and anyone who’s been married for that long knows that you have built something of immense, almost impossible power. I got to harness that power with seven extraordinary singers, my magnificent daughters, my psychically connected band, a colossally fierce choir, the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, and 2700 people in one of the finest concert halls on Earth.

OK, fine, Shoshana, I admit it. It was the greatest night of my life.

JRB & SHOSHANA BEAN: Coming Together from Wearing Someone Else’s Clothes (2005)
KELLI O’HARA: To Build A Home from The Bridges of Madison County (2014)
-Hamilton Berry, cello
JRB: Melinda from How We React and How We Recover (2018)
-Todd Reynolds, violin
JRB: Boat from Less (2025)
-Raul Agraz, flugelhorn
BEN PLATT: See Yourself from The Connector (2024)
BEN PLATT: It’s Hard to Speak My Heart from Parade (1998)
RAÚL ESPARZA: Big News! from Parade (1998)
RAÚL ESPARZA: Where I Belong from Less (2025)
HEATHER HEADLEY: Invisible from How We React and How We Recover (2018)
HEATHER HEADLEY: It All Fades Away from The Bridges of Madison County (2014)
-Hidayat Honari, guitar

Overture from Honeymoon In Vegas (2015)
-Giuseppe Fusco, tenor sax; Jamie Eblen, drums; Scott Wendholt & Raul Agraz, trumpet
JRB, GEORGIA STITT, MOLLY BROWN & SUSANNAH BROWN: Sanctuary from Coming From Inside The House (2021)
SHOSHANA BEAN: Stars and the Moon from Songs for a New World (1995)
-John Ostrowski, congas
SHOSHANA BEAN: Goodbye Until Tomorrow from The Last Five Years (2002)
J. HARRISON GHEE: Zohra’s Song from Less (2025)
J. HARRISON GHEE: More Room from Midnight In The Garden of Good and Evil (2025)
JRB: The Western Wall from The Connector (2025)
-Todd Reynolds, violin; Alison Shearer, flute
KELLI O’HARA: Always Better from The Bridges of Madison County (2014)
JRB: Wait ‘Til You See What’s Next from How We React and How We Recover (2018)
BILLY PORTER: All Things In Time from How We React and How We Recover (2018)

JRB: piano, vocals
Jamie Eblen: drums, percussion
Hidayat Honari: guitars
Randy Landau: bass
Members of ORCHESTRA OF ST. LUKE’S
Georgia Stitt, conductor
Violins: Todd Reynolds (concertmaster), Laura Lutzke, Monica Davis, Karl Kawahara, Emma Frucht, Conrad Harris, Elizabeth Lim-Dutton, Jessica McJunkins
Violas: Dana Kelley, Kal Sugatski
Celli: Hamilton Berry, Titilayo Ayangade, Robert Burkhart
Flute, Soprano and Alto Saxophone: Alison Shearer
Flute, Clarinet, Alto and Tenor Saxophone: Giuseppe Fusco
Clarinet, Bass Clarinet, Tenor and Baritone Saxophone: Robert DeBellis
French Horns: Eric Reed, Priscilla Rinehart
Trumpets: Raul Agraz, Scott Wendholt
Trombone and Bass Trombone: John Rojak
Percussion: John Ostrowski

THE VOICES OF FIERCENESS 2024
Sopranos: Tasha Michelle, Patrice Covington
Altos: Adee David, Carla R. Stewart
Tenors: Cheeyang Ng, Jesse Nager (contractor)
Baritones: Marcus Paul James, Martin Sola

All orchestrations and arrangements by JRB except “Big News!” and “Honeymoon In Vegas Overture” orchestrated by Don Sebesky
Music preparation: John Blane
Assistant to JRB: Kat Cartusciello
Orchestra librarian: Kristen Butcher
General Manager, Orchestra of St. Luke’s: Valerie Broderick

Daisy Prince, director
Eleni Gianulis-Vermeer, producer for Creative Partners Productions
Jon Weston, sound design
John Millerd, associate sound design
Scott Rollison, production stage manager
Pam Remler, stage manager

Concert photography by Erika Kapin and Heather Gershonowitz
Backstage photography by Jenny Anderson
JRB styling by @kaemanningstudio