Video: Mandy Patinkin Leads 'Somewhere Over the Rainbow' at Mayor Zohran Mamdani's Inauguration

Zohran Mamdani was sworn in as the Mayor of New York City on January 1. During the inauguration ceremony, Broadway's own Mandy Patinkin led a performance of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow", featuring a pubic high school choir from Staten Island. Check out the video here!

As BroadwayWorld previously reported, the members of Mayor Mamdani's inaugural committee includes familiar theater faces like Cole Escola, Cynthia Nixon, John Turturro, and Julio Torres. The 48-person committee, with members all across New York City, helped in the planning process for Mamdani's upcoming inauguration, and served as hosts for the ceremony.

About Mandy Patinkin

In his 1980 Broadway debut, Mandy won a Tony Award for his role as Che in Andrew Lloyd Webber's Evitaand was nominated in 1984 for his starring role as George in the Pulitzer Prize-winning musical, Sunday in the Park with George.  Mandy’s other stage credits include: Compulsion, Paradise Found, The Tempest, Enemy of the People, The Wild Party, Falsettos, The Secret Garden, The Winter's Tale, The Knife, Leave It to Beaver is Dead, Rebel Women, Hamlet, Trelawney of the ‘Wells,’ The Shadow Box, The Split, Savages, and Henry IV, Part I.  

In 1989, Mandy began his concert career at Joseph Papp's Public Theater in New York City, and has toured his various solo concerts across North America, in London’s West End, through Australia and New Zealand, as well as on Broadway and Off-Broadway. In addition to solo concerts, Mandy has created collaborations with artists including opera star Nathan Gunn in An Evening with Mandy Patinkin & Nathan Gunn, touring the US, Australia and New Zealand; with his dear friend Patti LuPone in An Evening with Patti LuPone and Mandy Patinkin which has toured since 2007 and played Broadway in 2012; Bridges, a concert with musicians from various countries in the Middle East; and most recently, The Last Two People on Earth: An Apocalyptic Vaudeville, with Taylor Mac, and direction by Susan Stroman.

Mandy’s newest feature film is Before You Know it, debuting August 30th in NYC and Los Angeles. Other feature films include Life Itself, Wonder, Smurfs: The Lost Village, The Queen of Spain, Ali and Nino, Wish I Was Here, The Wind Rises, Everybody’s Hero, The Choking Man, Pinero, The Adventures of Elmo In Grouchland, Lulu on the Bridge, Men with Guns, The Princess Bride, Yentl, The Music of Chance, Daniel, Ragtime, Impromptu, The Doctor, Alien Nation, Dick Tracy, The House on Carroll Street, True Colors, and Maxie. 

In television, Mandy was recently seen as Judge Wackner in the Paramount+ series “The Good Fight.” He won a 1995 Emmy Award for his performance in the CBS series ”Chicago Hope,” and starred in the CBS series “Criminal Minds” and in the Showtime Original Series “Dead Like Me” and “Homeland” as CIA Agent Saul Berenson. 

As a recording artist on CBS Records, Mandy released two solo albums, Mandy Patinkin and Mandy Patinkin In Concert: Dress Casual.  Recently on the Nonesuch label, Mandy recorded three digital albums Mandy Patinkin: Diary January 2018, Mandy Patinkin Diary April/May 2018 and Mandy Patinkin Diary December 2018. Also with Nonesuch are Experiment, Oscar & Steve, Kidults and Mandy Patinkin Sings Sondheim. In 1998 he debuted his most personal project, Mamaloshen, a collection of traditional, classic and contemporary songs sung entirely in Yiddish. The recording of Mamaloshen won the Deutschen Schallplattenpreis (Germany’s equivalent of the Grammy Award).  On October 25 of this year, Nonesuch Records released Mandy Patinkin’s Children and Art.  The songs were recorded in New York with pianist/producer Thomas Bartlett (aka Doveman); several have been previewed over the last two years as part of the digital Diary series.