Laura Osnes, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, et al. Featured on GEORGIA STITT Album; 11/29 Release

SH-K-BOOM RECORDS will release the new CD from Georgia Stitt, the award winning and critically acclaimed composer and lyricist. My Lifelong Love features thirteen of Stitt's original songs performed by some of the entertainment industry's most exciting singers, including Jesse Tyler Ferguson (TV's "Modern Family," The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee), Anika Noni Rose (The Princess and the Frog, Dreamgirls, TV's "The Good Wife"), Brian d'Arcy James (TV's "Smash," Shrek, Titanic), Susan Egan (Beauty And The Beast, Thoroughly Modern Millie), Shoshana Bean (Wicked, Hairspray), Heidi Blickenstaff ([title of show], The Addams Family), Laura Osnes (Anything Goes, Bonnie and Clyde), Christopher Jackson (In The Heights, TV's "The Electric Company"), Michael Arden (Bare, Source Code), jazz duo Jessica Molaskey and John Pizzarelli, Kate Baldwin (Finian's Rainbow) and Michael McElroy (Rent, Broadway Inspirational Voices). The recording will be available on November 29, 2011. You can pre-order the album at http://sh-k-boom.com/georgiastitt.shtml.

Stitt's My Lifelong Love is a collection of songs about love in its many incarnations: first love, lost love, love of music, love of children, and ultimately, love of self. Deeply personal and written from a distinctly female point of view, Stitt's music draws from classical, pop, gospel and musical theater influences. With lush orchestrations by Don Sebesky, Jason Robert Brown, Sam Davis and Stitt herself, each of these songs illuminates an emotional truth with thrilling and sensitive musical storytelling. In addition to the lyrics by traditional musical theater writers like Marcy Heisler and Bil Wright, My Lifelong Love also features Stitt's settings of poetry by Dorothy Parker, Derek Walcott, Alicia Partnoy and the Bard himself, William Shakespeare. Music by Sam Davis and David Kirshenbaum is also showcased, with lyrics by Stitt.

Georgia's first two albums are This Ordinary Thursday - which features performances by Matthew Morrison, Kelli O'Hara, Cheyenne Jackson, Faith Prince, Sara Ramirez and more - and Alphabet City Cycle, both available on the PS Classics label and iTunes. Next Magazine called her songs "rich and deep and intelligent, demanding instant repeating." Talkin' Broadway praised her work for its "ability to capture feelings deftly and daringly through music that grabs the mind and gut, but in a fresh, non-calculated way."

In addition to her recordings, Georgia has written the original musicals Big Red Sun (with playwright John Jiler); Hello! My Baby (a "new-fashioned" musical written with Emmy Award winner Cheri Steinkellner), The Water (with Jeff Hylton and Tim Werenko); the musical revue Sing Me A Happy Song; and Mosaic (Off-Broadway, with Cheri Steinkellner). Her non-theatrical compositions include several choral pieces, With Hope And Virtue, featured on NPR and using text from President Obama's 2009 inauguration speech, De Profundis, premiered by the International Orange Chorale in San Francisco, and Joyful Noise, a setting of Psalm 100 (all published by G. Schirmer), as well as A Better Resurrection and The Promise of Light (Walton Music).

Additionally, Georgia has written songs that are included on Susan Egan's solo albums Coffee House, Winter Tracks and The Secret of Happiness (which she also produced) and Kevin Odekirk's Unheard (all LML Records), Lauren Kennedy's album Here and Now (PS Classics), Daniel Boys' album So Close (Eden Records), Caroline Sheen's Raise The Curtain and Stuart Matthew Price's All Things In Time. She contributed two songs to the 2008 MTV movie The American Mall.

Also a music director, Georgia was the vocal coach for the 2008 season of the NBC hit show "America's Got Talent." She was the assistant music director for the NBC TV special "Clash of the Choirs," the on-camera vocal coach for the NBC reality TV show "Grease: You're The One That I Want," and the Production Music Coordinator for the Disney/ABC TV musical Once Upon A Mattress starring Tracey Ullman and Carol Burnett. On Broadway she was the assistant conductor of Little Shop of Horrors and the associate conductor of the Encores! production of Can-Can starring Patti LuPone. Other work on Broadway includes Avenue Q, Sweet Smell of Success, The Music Man, Titanic, Annie, and the national tour of Parade. In 2005 she served as an arranger for the Boston Pops Orchestra (Keith Lockhart, conductor) in their 75th Anniversary Tribute to Stephen Sondheim at Tanglewood and Boston's Symphony Hall.

Georgia's work as an arranger, pianist, and coach can be heard on Kate Baldwin's record Let's See What Happens (PS Classics), as well as on the Broadway Cares Home For The Holidays CD (Centaur Records) and the cast albums of After The Fair, Shine, Do Re Mi and Little Shop of Horrors.

With Susan Egan she pens the blog GlamourAndGoop.com about "two musical moms who find themselves the center of attention on stage and the center of the storm at home." Georgia has music degrees from NYU and Vanderbilt. She lives in Los Angeles and sometimes New York with her husband, composer/lyricist Jason Robert Brown, and their two daughters.

Her work is also available at www.youtube.com/user/GeorgiaStittMusic. More information is at www.GeorgiaStitt.com.

SH-K-BOOM RECORDS with its imprint Ghostlight Records has become the leading independent force in Original Broadway Cast Recordings - building a library of over 100 records the last 10 years, featuring the most successful Broadway musicals and solo albums by Broadway's biggest stars. Founded by Kurt Deutsch and wife Sherie Rene Scott, the label was created by and for the Broadway community and has garnered acclaim not only for their high-quality recordings, but for their innovative marketing techniques and efforts to reach the next generation of Broadway music fans via iTunes, social networking, music videos and more. Ghostlight recently celebrated a major milestone with their release of The Book of Mormon, which became the first Broadway cast recording to break into Billboard's Top 10 (topping out at #3) since the original 1969 release of Hair, as well as taking its place as the biggest-selling digital release of a cast recording of all time. Also just released on the label are the OCRs of Catch Me If You Can, Sister Act and Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, as well as solo albums from some of Broadway's biggest stars: Sutton Foster, Kelli O'Hara, Alice Ripley, Linda Lavin, Christine Ebersole, Melissa Errico and Ben Vereen. In recent Broadway seasons, Ghostlight has preserved the scores of some of Broadway's most well-known musicals, including the Grammy Award-winning In the Heights, plus Next to Normal, Hair, Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, Legally Blonde, Everyday Rapture, Passing Strange, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee and The Drowsy Chaperone. Coverage of their albums has ranged from Rolling Stone to USA Today to The New York Times, from Blender Magazine to Playbill to Billboard, and many more. The company is recognized for reinventing the musical theatre recording landscape, and creating a new type of ‘United Artists' environment for Broadway producers and artists to participate in the funding and co-ownership of their albums. For more information, visit www.GhostlightRecords.com or www.sh-k-boom.com.

 

Photo Credit: Peter James Zielinski