John Latouche

Madison Opera will close its 23/24 mainstage season with its first production in over 30 years of Candide, Leonard Bernstein’s beloved American opera.  Based on Voltaire’s satirical novella, Candide mixes a dazzling score with comedy, tragedy, and impossible situations that result in a sublime whole.

Billy Stritch has always embodied a suave elegance that evokes another era before tuxedos were replaced by ripped jeans and before cocktail hour was replaced by Netflix binges. His encyclopedic knowledge of The Great American Songbook is prodigious. He not only knows all the songs, he knows the history of them all. He is as stylish as the great pianists of that era: Oscar Peterson, Marion McPartland, Teddy Wilson, Art Tatum, and Dave Grusin. He is the upholder of a tradition that includes Ella Fitzgerald, Tony Bennett, Frank Sinatra, Barbra Streisand, Doris Day, and Mel Tormé.

This week's list includes the songbook to Moulin Rouge! the Musical. Also, check out the Estella Scrooge cast album featuring Danny Burstein, Betsy Wolfe, Lauren Patten, Patrick Page, Carolee Carmello, and more.

Need something new to read, watch, or listen to? Check out this week's list of new and upcoming releases! This week's list includes new music from Josh Groban and Lea Salonga, plus the cast recording of Les Miserables: The Staged Concert, and a holiday album from the cast of Hadestown!

When live performances stopped, many artists found themselves faced with uncertainty, challenges and a longing to perform. It didn't take long for musicians like Billy Stritch to find a new home online.

York's show (and tell!) virtual cast reunion series continues tonight, October 19th at 7pm with Taking a Chance on Love. The event will feature Erik Haagensen (deviser), Jeff Smith (music director/arranger), Joe McConnell (casting director), and cast members Terry Burrell, Jerry Dixon, Donna English, and Eddie Korbich

The York Theater Company presents an evening of musical theater, featuring material from three shows they are helping to develop.

Club44 Records has announced the release of Love Notes, the new album from LINDA LAVIN. Love Notes, an elegant and swinging mix of timeless standards, jazz classics and gems of the pop/rock era, features the album's first single, 'Stars Would Fall,' a sophisticated new song by Joel Lindsey and Wayne Haun.

Tony and Golden Globe Award-winning TV and stage star, Linda Lavin – will release her new album Love Notes this Friday, March 27 from Club44 Records. A swinging and elegant collection of standards, jazz classics, and pop hits, set to a top-tier band led by Billy Stritch, this album is what the world NEEDS now! Lavin's gorgeous and lustrous voice makes you want to strap on your dancing shoes and head to a smoky jazz club to swing the night away!

Club44 Records has announced the release of Loves Notes, the new album from LINDA LAVIN - the Tony Award and Golden Globe winning and Emmy Award nominated stage and screen legend - on Friday, March 27.

Michael Gennaro, Goodspeed's Executive Director, has announced three thrilling titles on track for next season at The Goodspeed.

PS CLASSICS, the label that celebrates the heritage of Broadway and American popular song, has released its groundbreaking new recording Philip Chaffin: Will He Like Me? today, Friday, November 9. The album is featured in The New York Times "2018 Holiday Gift Guide," which raves, "From 'When I Marry Mr. Snow' to 'I Got Lost in His Arms,' Chaffin tells a familiar story that has never sounded so new." 

The legacy of music icons - including Aaron Copland, Johnny Mathis and Joni Mitchell - continues to inspire award-worthy creative works. These artists are among the subjects of recently named winners of the 50th annualASCAP Foundation Deems Taylor/Virgil Thomson Awards for outstanding print, broadcast and new media coverage of music.

PS CLASSICS will release the groundbreaking new recording Philip Chaffin: Will He Like Me? online and in stores November 9, 2018.

Join Sydney Philharmonia Choirs for the highlight of their 2018 season, a rare concert performance of Leonard Bernstein's genius musical comedy masterwork, Candide, performed by an all-star Australian cast including Caroline O'Connor, Alexander Lewis, Phillip Scott, Annie Aitken and Kanen Breen.

Following immense backlash on social media over whitewashing of the role of Maria, meant to be Puerto Rican, Boggess took to Facebook to announce that she was withdrawing from the production.

When you hear the first few notes of the rollicking overture, you know Bernstein is genuflecting hard to Johann Strauss. Yet this is a story in which the principal characters are bayoneted, hanged, maimed, raped, prostituted, ravaged by disease, and enslaved, among other things, a story which, thematically, takes the characters and us right to the edge of the Nietzschean abyss and gives us a good long sobering look into it - not the sort of thing Strauss or Gilbert and Sullivan ever did.

2018 is the 100th anniversary of the birth of Leonard Bernstein. Sydney Philharmonia Choirs will acknowledge thissignificant anniversary by participating in the global celebrations to honour Bernstein's legacy, with two planned performances of the choral masterpiece, Candide (1956) on Saturday 29th September and Sunday 30th September 2018 at the Sydney Opera House.

From the moment the amazing James Conlon-conducted orchestra began their crisp, lively 'Overture' to 'Quartet Finale,' the close of Act One; this remarkable production of CANDIDE entranced the Dorothy Chandler audience. Then after a short intermission, these talented performers and musicians had the audience right back in the palms of their skilled hands, beyond the tears-inducing finale 'Make Our Garden Grow,' to the extended and most deserved standing ovation for the cast, orchestra, and creatives.

Single tickets are on sale today for the 2018 season of Lyrics & Lyricists, the country's preeminent American Songbook series.