Laura Benanti, Gavin Creel, Michael Cerveris, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Elaine Paige & More Set for AMERICAN SONGBOOK at Lincoln Center

Lincoln Center's acclaimed series American Songbook returns to the elegant Allen Room in January for its fourteenth season celebrating the diversity of American popular song. For 16 nights the series will explore the best of the golden age of musical standards through to today's most dynamic songwriting. The music of Broadway, Latin culture and hip-hop, bluegrass, rock, and pop will be presented, along with three evenings devoted to great American composers and lyricists. The 2012 season - January 11 through February 11 - will bring to the stage some of today's most gifted interpreters of song, including Tony Award winners Laura Benanti, Michael Cerveris, and LaChanze, as well as the "Queen of British Musicals," the great Elaine Paige.

In keeping with American Songbook's tradition of honoring great composers and lyricists, those being celebrated this season are William Finn (The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, Falsettos), folk icon Woody Guthrie, and Jule Styne (Gypsy, Funny Girl). A relatively new composer on the scene, multiple Tony-winning Lin-Manuel Miranda (In the Heights) will open the series with a new rap composition about Alexander Hamilton. Also performing in the rap/hip- hop vein is the exciting ensemble Ozomatli.

From the rock canon will be J.D. Souther, performing songs he wrote for Linda Ronstadt and the Eagles as well as newer compositions, guitar god Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth doing an acoustic set, and the wildly expressive Merrill Garbus, known as tUnE-yArDs.

Singer/songwriters, both emerging and veteran, are part of American Songbook as well. Diva of the demi-monde Keren Ann is part of the series, as is the man whose deep voice and masculine presence has earned him the nickname "The John Wayne of Indie Rock," Bill Callahan.

The spectacular Allen Room is located in Frederick P. Rose Hall, home of Jazz at Lincoln Center on Broadway at 60th Street. The Allen Room possesses one of New York's greatest settings - a stunning vista of Central Park and the Manhattan skyline that provides an evocative backdrop for the performers.

TICKETS can be purchased online beginning November 14, 2011 at Lincoln Center's website www.AmericanSongbook.org, via CenterCharge at 212-721-6500, at the Alice Tully Hall, Avery Fisher Hall Box Office, or at the Frederick P. Rose Hall Box Office. Tickets for the Friends of Lincoln Center go on sale November 3, and single tickets go on sale to the public beginning November 14.

New: Premium packages-including wine, dinner, and the best seats in the house-are available for the first time this year, for $250. More information at AmericanSongbook.org.

Lincoln Center's American Songbook 2012 Season
January 11 - February 11, 2012
The Allen Room, Frederick P. Rose Hall, Broadway at 60th Street

Wednesday, January 11, 2012, 8:30 pm Lin-Manuel Miranda
In 2008 some of the top honors at the Tony Awards were taken by a show created by a virtually unknown young composer and actor - Lin-Manuel Miranda and his original musical, In the Heights. The music was a fusion of Latin, hip-hop and classic Broadway styles. On January 11th Miranda will perform a sneak preview of new songs from an anticipated work-in-progress: The Hamilton Mixtape, a hip-hop song cycle about the life and death of Alexander Hamilton. Miranda first performed part of The Hamilton Mixtape for President Obama at the White House; this one-night-only performance is scheduled for Hamilton's 255th birthday.

Thursday, January 12, 2012, 8:30 pm Chris Thile & Michael Daves
Mandolin virtuoso Chris Thile (of the groups Nickel Creek and Punch Brothers) and guitar maven Michael Daves form an impassioned collaboration in their acclaimed new recording, Sleep with One Eye Open, playing songs made famous by legendary bluegrass artists from years past. Together they bring "small-town music with New York City intensity" (NPR) to bluegrass standards played with punk rock abandon. But while acknowledging history they exuberantly defy tradition. Their take-no-prisoners bluegrass will be on dazzling display in The Allen Room.

Friday, January 13, 2012, 8:30 pm J.D. Souther
The songs of J.D. Souther are on the personal soundtrack of virtually every American over the age of 30. Souther wrote many of the hits by the Eagles - The Best of My Love, New Kid in Town, Heartache Tonight, to name a few - as well as Linda Ronstadt's Prisoner in Disguise and Faithless Lover, for example, as a key songwriter for the golden era of California rock in the 1970s. What Souther is doing now is taking his best compositions, in stripped-down arrangements, and singing to recapture the moment and emotion of their creation.

Saturday, January 14, 2012, 8:30 pm William Finn: Songs of Innocence and Experience
William Finn's enormously popular Broadway musicals - Falsettos and The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee - along with his numerous works Off Broadway including A New Brain, Elegies, and Romance in Hard Times mine his life experiences of being gay and Jewish to usually hilarious, often tender effect. His newest project is a Broadway-bound musical of the movie Little Miss Sunshine. Finn will be joined by favorite vocalists and they'll bring to The Allen Room a song cycle inspired by the poetry of William Blake focusing on family, belonging, love, loss, and healing - the stuff of the great American Songbook.

Wednesday, January 18, 2012, 8:30 pm The Works: Jonatha Brooke Celebrates Woody Guthrie at 100
2012 marks the centennial of the birth of Woody Guthrie, singer, songwriter, poet, novelist, painter, rambler, and activist. From the years of the Great Depression through to the postwar 1950s Guthrie gave voice to this country's disenfranchised. In 2009 singer/songwriter Jonatha Brooke was given lyrics by Guthrie's daughter that she then turned into songs for an album. Now in Guthrie's centennial year, Brooke celebrates the songs of Woody Guthrie once again, along with new songs of her own. Singer/songwriter Dar Williams will be among Brooke's special guests.

Thursday, January 19, 2012, 8:30 pm LaChanze
Broadway veteran singer, dancer, and actress LaChanze is celebrated for her many luminous portrayals on Broadway, from Once on This Island (Drama Desk Award and Tony nomination) to Bubbly Black Girl Sheds Her Chameleon Skin (Drama Desk nomination) to Dessa Rose (OBIE Award and Drama Desk nomination) to her triumphant portrayal of Celie in The Color Purple (Tony Award), along with her recent role in the hit movie The Help. She will be performing a variety of songs including some from shows she has appeared in, displaying the beauty of her voice and her dramatic skill with a lyric.

Friday, January 20, 2012, 8:30 pm Ozomatli
Three-time Grammy Award-winners Ozomatli's music has been described as urban-Latin-hip-hop-salsa-dancehall-samba-funk, with the sounds of reggae, Indian raga and New Orleans second line thrown in. It is playful, happy and terrifically danceable, and its mash-up of styles can transport listeners around the world. This LA-based group, who have been designated as State Department Cultural Ambassadors, has taken their party sound into the global arena, playing not only free concerts but giving classes to local musicians in Nepal, Jordan, India, and Tunisia, and extending humanitarian outreach in Vietnam, Thailand, and earthquake-ridden China. Their message is simple: different instruments but one rhythm, with music uniting us all.

Saturday, January 21, 2012, 8:30 pm and 10:30 pm Michael Cerveris
What this night will be, very simply, is a great singer doing great songs. Cerveris, long a favorite of Stephen Sondheim having starred in Sondheim's musicals Assasins (Tony Award), Sweeney Todd, Road Show, and Passion, also has an entire other career as an indie singer/songwriter and guitarist. He can sing pretty much anything, from German lieder to Italian love songs to Tommy in The Who's rock opera of the same name. Playbill.com has described him as "arguably the most versatile leading man on Broadway." On January 21st he will present "The Idea of the South," a genre defying recital/cabaret/hootenanny of songs ranging from the Carter Family and Johnny Mercer to Vic Chestnutt and Samuel Barber with guest musicians from New Orleans.

Wednesday, February 1, 2012, 8:30 pm Keren Ann
A singer/songwriter who has been described as "mesmerizing" (People magazine), Keren Ann writes and performs art-pop. Her upbeat songs have delicious melody, sonic detail and ethereal vocals. They reference folk music, jazz, choral singing and a bit of soul. Up until recently Keren Ann had a devoted but small core of fans, but with her music being played on TV shows including "Grey's Anatomy" and "Big Love" here in the US and countless shows in Europe her audience has exploded.

Thursday, February 2, 2012, 8:30 pm Thurston Moore
Sonic Youth, the band that Thurston Moore co-founded in 1981 and that he performs in still, is one of the celebrated progenitors of noise rock, a brand of protopunk rock also known as alternative rock. Generally regarded as a guitarist in the same league as Eric Clapton and Keith Richards, albeit far more experimental, Thurston Moore's guitar and vocals have fueled Sonic Youth's sound for 30 years. But in The Allen Room he'll present another side, his acoustic, folk music side, also utilizing violin and concert harp. It's Moore with less - and equally worth a listen.

Friday, February 3, 2012, 8:30 pm Hello, Gorgeous! Leslie Kritzer Sings Jule Styne
Beautiful Leslie Kritzer has been called "a consistent source of off-kilter brilliance" (The New York Times). Fresh off the Sondheim showcase last season with Barbara Cook, Kritzer is known for her antic cabaret shows that showcase her gift for musical impersonation, as well as her delicious turn in the show Legally Blonde and her Drama Desk nominated performance in A Catered Affair. On February 3rd she will turn her Broadway belt to songs by the great Jule Styne, composer of Gypsy and Funny Girl and other iconic shows.

Saturday, February 4, 2012, 8:30 pm and 10:30 pm Gavin Creel & Stephen Oremus
Gavin Creel is a singer/songwriter/actor/activist who has dual careers as a Broadway leading man as well as a pop singer. His sweet, earnest tenor has earned him Tony nominations for both Hair and Thoroughly Modern Millie. Creel and Tony Award-winning music director, arranger, and orchestrator Stephen Oremus - the music supervisor of Wicked, Avenue Q, and The Book of Mormon - have put together a night of classic theater tunes and alternative rock from two bright lights from the new generation of Broadway.

Wednesday, February 8, 2012, 8:30 pm Bill Callahan
The deep voice and sardonic delivery bring to mind Johnny Cash or Kris Kristofferson, but it's the inventive lyrics that mark Bill Callahan as an original. Callahan recorded for years under the name Smog, perhaps as a need for anonymity and not as a reference to the impact that his music has on the listener. If that is what he wanted to reference, his previous identity would have been Poetry.

Thursday, February 9, 2012, 8:30 pm tUnE-yArDs

New England native Merrill Gerbus' career started in theater, but a trip to Africa changed her. She embraced African rhythms and odd vocal techniques, creating drum loops on the spot and layering them with ukulele and voice. Now fleshed out with a bassist and two saxophone players, tUne-yArDs' musical performances are joyous, complex pieces that show their African influences but veer off into something more theatrical and decidedly more modern. As for the name tUnE-yArDs, it is from a lyric from an old song by Gerbus. "And we'll fly over tune-yards in our dreams" described a place where songs just grew instead of needing to be concocted and convoluted. The odd capitalization was a way to get attention on Myspace.

Friday, February 10, 2012, 8:30 pm Elaine Paige
A legend comes to American Songbook. The reigning queen of British musical theater and Olivier Award winner Elaine Paige first astounded theater audiences with her creation of the role of Eva Peron in Evita. Her subsequent roles as Grizabella in Cats, Florenz in Chess, Edith Piaf in Piaf, and the leads in Sweeney Todd, Sunset Boulevard, Anything Goes and The King and I added to her luster. She performs concerts around the world, has a weekly BBC 2 radio program, sells multi-platinum CDs, was awarded the Order of the British Empire and is currently giving a critically-acclaimed performance as Carlotta in Follies on Broadway. Now she is ready to conquer The Allen Room.

Saturday, February 11, 2012, 8:30 pm Laura Benanti

Her astonishing beauty is matched by a bell-clear soprano and the ability to inhabit characters with total conviction. In her cabaret shows she lets out an antic sense of humor, and on Broadway in Nine, A Little Night Music, and Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown Benanti was the brightest light on stage. Benanti won a Tony Award for her role in Gypsy, making the transformation from tomboy Louise to the stripper Gypsy Rose Lee completely believable and heart-wrenching.