An Evening of Cabaret with Lina Koutrakos and Gregory Toroian at Palisades Hub

Lina Koutrakos is an award-winning singer/songwriter/teacher/director based in New York City. As a singer, she has repeatedly received rave reviews from The New York Times to Billboard Magazine in both rock and roll and cabaret and has been awarded Cabaret’s most prestigious awards for “Best Female Vocalist” and “Entertainer of the Year,” multiple times. Her directorial nods include being a 4-time winner for “Best Director” from the MAC Association as well as a lifetime Backstage Bistro Award-Winner for “Best Director.” Koutrakos was on staff as a Master Teacher for years at both the Eugene O'Neill Cabaret Symposium and The Yale Cabaret Conference. She was the first Master Teacher with The St. Louis Cabaret Conference and co-founded NYC’s Summer in the City yearly workshop on weekends. She has since gone on to start her own performance workshop “Performance Connection,” which umbrellas many ongoing and specialty workshops and seminars both online and in person. The Advance Performance Workshop in NYC has produced many award-winning performers and shows over the last 2 decades. Her singing and being the founder of the Midwest Cabaret Conference in Chicago for 10 years won her the “Gold Coast” Award with the Chicago Cabaret Professionals in 2019. She spearheads an annual Advanced Performance Workshop on the island of Mykonos. Due to her performance workshops with full bands to one-on-one clients across the U.S. to her own award-winning original material and one woman shows, Koutrakos has been called a “Walking Master Class” by Billboard Magazine. For more information, visit linasings.com

Gregory Toroian is a musical director, arranger, jazz pianist, vocalist, songwriter, and educator. He has been featured in Cabaret Scenes magazine and was the 2020 Bistro Award winner for Outstanding Collaboration with Sue Matsuki, with whom he had also won a MAC award for Best Duo Production. In addition to working with such artists as Tony Bennett, Jon Hendricks, Cab Calloway, Donna Summer, Melissa Errico, Marilyn Maye, Karen Mason, and Jane Olivor. He has appeared in almost every jazz club and cabaret (major and minor), in New York. He has toured with principal dancers from the New York City Ballet and has made numerous radio and television appearances including the Today Show and Maury Povich. Recordings include his work as musical director, arranger, and pianist on the recent debut album of Maria Corsaro, “Love Makes the Changes”; “A New Take”, the debut album of award-winning cabaret artist Sue Matsuki; and CD’s with Suzanna Ross, Leslee Warren, Lina Koutrakos, Linda Kahn, Meri Ziev, and Lisa Kantor. Gregory’s vocal arrangements have been featured on a series of albums in the US and Japan, by the vocal group String of Pearls. Gregory also wrote the music to the title song of the Boston Red Sox documentary, “Joy of Sox”. He currently offers an array of performance workshops.