92nd Street Y Announces Lyrics And Lyricists 2010 Line-up

The 92nd Street Y announces the 2010 line-up for Lyrics & Lyricists, the 40th anniversary season of 92Y's legendary American Songbook series. DEBORAH GRACE WINER returns for her second season as artistic director of the series, as well as one of the shows. Guest artistic directors are Lucie Arnaz, DARYL SHERMAN, Rob Fisher, Ted Sperling and Robert Kimball.

Subscriptions for the season go on sale July 13. Individual tickets for all performances go on sale August 13. Please call 212-415-5500 or go to www.92Y.org/Lyrics for more information.

To celebrate the 40th anniversary of L&L, the 92nd Street Y kicks off the season with I REMEMBER YOU: A LYRICS & LYRICISTS centennial tribute to Johnny Mercer. This special, one-night-only tribute to the legendary songwriter takes place on November 18, 2009, which would have been Mercer's 100th birthday. Robert Kimball and Deborah Grace Winer team up as co-artistic directors. Kimball's forthcoming volume, Johnny Mercer's Complete Lyrics, is slated for release by Knopf on October 20.

This season's shows range from saloon songs to satire to south-of-the-border, with one stop on the dance floor and another in a smoky nightclub. Lucie Arnaz debuts as an L&L artistic director in January with her father's original big band arrangements for the Desi Arnaz Orchestra. Many of these arrangements were heard on TV in the 1950s on I Love Lucy, but have since spent decades holed up in the Library of Congress. February's show features another L&L newcomer, Daryl Sherman, hailed by the New York Times for a "musical spirit [that] belongs to an era when jazz singing was an expression of pure enjoyment." She celebrates the intersection of jazz and the American Songbook with an intimate, saloon-style look at Johnny Burke, whose collaboration with Jimmy Van Heusen made them Paramount Pictures' songwriting "A Team." Deborah Grace Winer devotes her March show to the songwriters featured in the classic films of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. "A huge chunk of the American Songbook comes from the Astaire and Rogers movies-and picking songs is like being locked in a candy store." Rob Fisher returns in May (with his repeat L&L partner and host Sheldon Harnick) for a salute to satirical songs from such writers as Stephen Sondheim, E.Y. "Yip" Harburg, and Harnick himself, with a special look at Tom Lehrer -- a comic road trip from "The Boston Beguine" to "Hanukkah in Santa Monica." Ted Sperling closes out the season in June with L&L's first show devoted to the incomparable Hoagy Carmichael.

"In 40 years we've grown from a gleam in founder Maurice Levine's eye into the country's premier American Songbook concert series," Winer says. "We feature top-flight guest artistic directors and performers from Broadway, jazz, and cabaret, offering a fresh take on one of our greatest American art forms."

L&L shows are Saturday at 8 pm, Sunday at 3 and 8 pm, and Monday at 2 and 8 pm. Individual tickets are $62 and $52; subscriptions to the five-concert series running from January to June are $270 and $225. The 92nd Street Y will also offer an "under-35" ticket price for the Saturday and Sunday evening performances, with $25 individual tickets and $100 season subscriptions. Tickets for the Johnny Mercer show are also $62 and $52, but are not included in the subscription package; they must be purchased separately.

Lyrics & Lyricists is produced by the 92nd Street Y Tisch Center for the Arts under Director Hanna Arie-Gaifman.

Lyrics & Lyricists: 2010 Season

November 18 - One Night Only
I REMEMBER YOU: A LYRICS & LYRICISTS CENTENNIAL TRIBUTE TO Johnny Mercer
Robert Kimball, DEBORAH GRACE WINER Co-Artistic Directors
This special tribute takes place on what would have been Johnny Mercer's actual 100th birthday. Mercer, who appeared in L&L's inaugural season, wrote the lyrics to more than a thousand songs, received nineteen Academy Award nominations and was a co-founder of Capitol Records. Some of his best-known songs include "Blues in the Night" and "One for My Baby (and One More for the Road)," both with Harold Arlen; "Satin Doll," with Duke Ellington; and "Moon River," with Henry Mancini.

January 9, 10, 11
BABALU: THE AMERICAN SONGBOOK GOES LATIN - WITH THE MUSIC OF THE Desi Arnaz ORCHESTRA
Lucie Arnaz, Artistic Director, Host, Vocals
South-of-the-border rhythms captivated songwriters from Irving Berlin to Cole Porter and beyond. Lucie Arnaz celebrates the "Latin invasion" of the '30s, '40s and '50s through her father's original big band arrangements. They have been stored in the Library of Congress for decades, but they will re-emerge this January, when she brings them to the 92Y stage.

February 21, 22, 23
MISTY: Johnny Burke AFTER HOURS
DARYL SHERMAN, Artistic Director, Host, Piano, Vocals
Jazz singer/pianist Daryl SHerman Offers an intimate, saloon-style tribute to Johnny Burke. The reigning lyricist of Paramount Pictures, his songs, including "Misty," "Here's that Rainy Day," "Swinging on a Star," "What's New?" and "Pennies From Heaven," seduced singers from Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra to Billie Holiday.

March 21, 22, 23
FRED AND GINGER IN SO MANY WORDS: THE ASTAIRE-ROGERS SONGBOOK
DEBORAH GRACE WINER, Artistic Director, Host
Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, Jerome Kern, Dorothy Fields, George Gershwin and many others wrote songs for the movies of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. Deborah Grace Winer salutes this lasting legacy to the American Songbook.

May 8, 9, 10
POISONING PIGEONS IN THE PARK: THE ART OF THE SATIRIC COMEDY SONG
Rob Fisher, Artistic Director
Sheldon Harnick, Host
Rob Fisher heads up a witty, wicked salute to Tom Lehrer and the lineage of lyricists-from W.S. Gilbert and E.Y. "Yip" Harburg to Sheldon Harnick and Stephen Sondheim-who savor and serve up the follies of our imperfect world.

June 5, 6, 7
IN THE COOL, COOL, COOL OF THE EVENING: THE STARDUST OF Hoagy Carmichael
Ted Sperling, Artistic Director, Host
Jazzman Hoagy Carmichael gave us some of America's most-recorded songs. In L&L's first-ever Carmichael show, Ted Sperling takes us back to the jazz clubs, movies and radio waves where hits like "Stardust," "Georgia on My Mind" and "Lazy River" were first heard from coast to coast.

Long one of the 92nd Street Y's most popular programs, the American Songbook series Lyrics & Lyricists^TM was launched in 1970 when longtime Broadway conductor Maurice Levine and lyricist E.Y. "Yip" Harburg (The Wizard of Oz) took to the stage to talk about the then unusual topic of songwriting. Over the years the series has featured every great Broadway and Hollywood lyricist including Betty Comden and Adolph Green, Johnny Mercer, Stephen Sondheim, Dorothy Fields, and Alan Jay Lerner. In 1978, Lyrics & Lyricists began celebrating composers as well as lyricists and, in 1982, the series evolved from first-person histories of the American musical theatre to narrated musical revues. In 2004, the 92nd Street Y reinvented the format yet again when it asked several accomplished champions of the repertoire - artists like John Pizzarelli, Andrea Marcovicci, Rob Fisher, Sheldon Harnick, Robert Kimball and Ted Sperling - to present original programs in the Lyrics & Lyricists tradition: seamless mixtures of information and entertainment with a particular focus on lyrics. For more information, please visit www.92Y.org/Lyrics.

The Lyrics & Lyricists series is partially underwritten by The Blanche and Irving Laurie Foundation. The performances of Lyrics & Lyricists' "In the Cool, Cool, Cool of the Evening: The Stardust of Hoagy Carmichael" are underwritten by Gilda and Henry Block and Kenneth Kolker. The November 18 performance of "I Remember You: A Lyrics & Lyricists Centennial Tribute to Johnny Mercer" and the March 22 evening performance of "Fred and Ginger in So Many Words: The Astaire-Rogers Songbook" are underwritten by The Henry Nias Foundation, courtesy of Dr. Stanley Edelman.

Founded in 1874 by a group of visionary Jewish leaders, the 92nd Street Y has grown into a wide-ranging cultural, educational and community center serving people of all ages, races, faiths and backgrounds - about 300,000 people each year.

Since launching its concert series in 1934, what is now the 92nd Street Y Tisch Center for the Arts has presented acclaimed classical musicians and exciting newcomers. The Center is also home to 92Y's legendary American songbook series, Lyrics & Lyricists, and to 92Y's summer Jazz in July festival, with artistic director Bill Charlap. The Tisch Center's literary program, the Unterberg Poetry Center, presents the country's oldest and arguably most illustrious reading series as well as an extensive writing program that gives working adults access to teachers who are published authors - a rarity outside M.F.A. programs. The 92nd Street Y Tisch Center for the Arts is endowed through the generosity of the Joan and Preston Robert Tisch family.

For more information visit www.92Y.org.

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