Nikki Renée Daniels, Julia Murney, Jeff Kready & More Featured in JULE STYNE AND HIS MANY LYRICISTS: DISTANT MELODY

It is said that Jule Styne published over 1,500 songs in his lifetime, a staggering number that spans decades and includes some of the biggest hits in the history of popular song. His lyricists were such names as Frank Loesser ("I Don't Want To Walk Without You"), Sammy Cahn ("It's Magic"), Betty Comden & Adolph Green ("Just in Time"), Bob Merrill ("People"), and Stephen Sondheim ("Everything's Coming Up Roses").

"Styne was quoted repeatedly as saying: 'Without the rendition, there is no song.' His work has been a gift to performers for decades, which is exactly why nearly every major recording artist of the genre covered his songs," notes Artistic Director Paul Masse. "His philosophy that the 'rendition' is paramount speaks to an inherent trust in the craft of the performer and is how his work has managed to endure for so long and through so many incarnations."

The first three programs of L&L Preludes are available through December 31 at 92Y.org/lyrics.

George Gershwin: BIDIN' MY TIME

Featuring: Farah Alvin, Allison Blackwell, James T. Lane, Kara Lindsay, and Zachary Prince
Available through December 31
As a companion to the Gershwin program from this past March (rescheduled for spring of 2021), this program is set among excerpts of letters and archival interviews with George Gershwin and his brother and lyricist Ira Gershwin, his longtime musical collaborator and friend Kay Swift, and his witty and legendary friend and pianist Oscar Levant. The words of Todd Duncan and Anne Brown, the original Porgy and Bess , provide an intimate perspective of the creation of Gershwin's "folk opera" and the invaluable contributions of its performers. Peppered among hits like "Embraceable You" and "Love Is Here To Stay" are pieces of essays written by George Gershwin in which he pondered and pontificated on the meaning of "jazz" and the definition of "music" itself. Asserting his constant effort to eschew genres, Gershwin wrote: "From any sound critical standpoint, labels mean nothing at all. Good music is good music, even if you call it 'oysters.'"

Tom Jones & Harvey Schmidt: SIMPLE LITTLE THINGS

Featuring: Farah Alvin, Brandon Victor Dixon, Katherine Henly, Telly Leung, Zachary Piser, Mariand Torres - Vocals
Available through December 31
60 years ago, on May 3, 1960, at the tiny Sullivan Street Playhouse in Greenwich Village, The Fantasticks opened on the sparsest of budgets and ran uninterrupted for nearly 42 years, closing on January 13, 2002 after a record 17,162 performances. Its elegance and simplicity endured four decades of the chaotic world going "Round and Round" while its creators continued their evolution into several uptown successes. Including 110 In the Shade and I Do! I Do! , the jewel box of creativity that is the Jones and Schmidt collaboration is perhaps the most steadfast of its kind.

RODGERS, RODGERS, AND GUETTEL: STATUES AND STORIES

Featuring Allison Blackwell, Nikki Renée Daniels, Katherine Henly, Telly Leung, Julia Murney, Zachary Noah Piser, Pearl Sun, Mariand Torres
Available through December 31

The groundbreaking works of Richard Rodgers, most famously in his collaborations with Lorenz Hart and Oscar Hammerstein II, gave us the foundation of the modern musical theater form. But Rodgers also left a family lineage that has enriched the craft in abundant fashion. In a loose song cycle format, this program will weave his work with the charming and witty creations of daughter Mary Rodgers (Once Upon a Mattress) and the complex and extraordinary palette of grandson Adam Guettel (The Light in the Piazza, Floyd Collins ), as we look toward the progression of musicals over the decades and into the future.

L&L Preludes Continues

THE THEME FROM...: SONGS WRITTEN FOR FILM

Premieres December 14, 7 pm ET and available through December 31
Performers TBA
As a celebration of our performers, and the necessary medium of film to tell these stories at this moment in time, this special program presents some of the best songs specifically written for film ever since the genre first achieved the technology to capture sound. A diverse concert of hits like "Moon River" and "The Man That Got Away" mixed in with other songs from decades of film history offers a look at the effect of these songs on an audience and how, even in a non-musical film, music is key to unlocking the emotional journey of storytelling.