Jason Robert Brown

How We React and How We Recover, the new album from three time Tony Award winner Jason Robert Brown. His first solo recording in over a decade is a politically-charged, far-reaching rumination on love, family and music. How We React and How We Recover – partly a response to our fraught political climate, part portrait of an evolving contemporary artist– is Brown’s definitive interpretation of his own compositions, pregnant with emotion, capacious musical energy and symphonic sweep. “I grew up on Billy Joel and Joni Mitchell, but also Stephen Sondheim and Leonard Bernstein,” reflects Brown. “All those influences sit withinRead More »

My favorite musical theater composers have all been formidable pianists: Leonard Bernstein, George Gershwin, Stephen Sondheim, Frank Loesser, Cy Coleman. When I was supposed to be learning Bach and Mozart for my piano lessons, I was instead spending countless hours playing through West Side Story and Sunday in the Park with George, relishing the challenge of reproducing the sounds I heard on the original cast albums and movie soundtracks. Meanwhile, I was writing songs inspired by my pop heroes: Billy Joel, Elton John, Carole King, Stevie Wonder – again, a group of pianists of great technical facility and truly individual style. Over time,Read More »

After her astonishing performance as Cathy in the world premiere of “The Last Five Years” in Chicago in 2001, Lauren Kennedy collaborated with JRB on this album featuring several songs never heard before as well as new arrangements of songs from all three of JRB’s shows.

JRB’s first solo album, released in 2005, and featuring JRB as a vocalist, pianist, arranger and writer, with his trio the Caucasian Rhythm Kings as well as a full symphony orchestra and choir. Special guest singer Lillias White contributes a scintillating vocal to “Coming Together,” a song written to commemorate the events of 9/11. The album offers a wide variety of styles and feels, produced by JRB’s longtime collaborator Jeffrey Lesser.