Two views from the Promenade Level exterior patio before the evening started--just a perfect evening!
Night one of two in a row for events at the Music Center at
Strathmore in Rockville: Audra McDonald. If you don't know who she is...google!
She's won no less than 6 Tony's on Broadway, a Grammy and an Emmy. She has one
of the finest voices on the planet. When she came out onto the stage, the
entire place erupted in applause and shouts and cheers! And she just waved both
hands and starting singing. Her repertoire consisted of music from the great
American Broadway songbook and included Frank Loesser, Rogers and Hammerstein,
Sondheim, Gershwin, Kander and Ebb, Irving Berlin and several contemporary
composers. She also filled the space between the music with stories from her
career and anecdotes about the composers.
In one story she told of how she completely flubbed up a
performance of Sondheim's "A Glamorous Life" from "A Little
Night Music" just weeks ago at the Penn Faulkner awards in NYC with
Sondheim and Meryl Streep sitting directly in front of her. It was funny and
full of grace and self-deprecation. When she sang "Summertime" from
"Porgy and Bess" I soon felt a dull pain in my chest and I realized
that I had simply stopped breathing her acoustic presentation feeling so holy,
so sacred. She had the audience sing along with "I Could Have Danced All
Night" from "My Fair Lady," and when the song was over she
stopped to compliment a young woman sitting in the front row and then engaged
her a good five minute conversation about her voice, her experiences, and her
aspirations finishing with some amazing free advice in a turn that this young
woman (16 years old) will never forget.
In a moment of high comedy, she featured a work by a young
Australian singer-song writer, Kate Miller-Heidke called "The Facebook
Song (Are You Fucking Kidding Me!?). Then followed it with another aspiring
songwriter/lyricist Adam Gwon's "I'll Be Here"--a heart wrenching
song of a newly married couple who's future is destroyed by 9/11. I know this
song well and imagined that I would be a puddle, but she managed the intensity
of it in such a way that projected the hope that is also woven into the song.
Hope was her theme throughout. She constantly reminded the audience to
persevere in light of our present trials and tribulations.
An uproarious, overwhelming ovation after her final number
"Climb Every Mountain" (Cha...right?!) she returned for an encore of
"Somewhere Over The Rainbow." I was so glad that I had splurged on
this one for a box seat's comfort and autonomy.
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