The Town Hall
(123 West 43 Street), Times Square's landmark concert venue, will present
ANDREA MARCOVICCI's
60th birthday gala concert on Saturday, May
16th at 8PM. The celebrated singer and
actress is lauded as 'the greatest cabaret
star of her generation' by
The International Herald Tribune
and 'the epitome of elegance and showbiz
savvy' by
Variety.
The event will coincide with the release of
her first-ever 'greatest hits' collection,
As Time Goes By: The Best of Andrea
Marcovicci
on
Andreasong,
her own label. The CD, featuring two
newly-recorded songs, will include
highlights from three decades of classic
recordings. The disc will be available at
marcovicci.com,
CDBaby.com
and at The Town Hall that evening. Tickets
to the concert, which are $45 and $50, are
available through TicketMaster (212)
307-4100 or at
www.ticketmaster.com or by
visiting the Town Hall Box Office (between
noon and 6PM, except Sundays), (212)
840-2824.
Act One at The Town Hall features Andrea
performing her signature numbers, which
include 'These Foolish Things,' 'Smoke Gets
in Your Eyes,' 'The Last Time I Saw Paris'
and 'The Folks Who Live on the Hill.' In Act
Two, Andrea performs songs by newer
composers, most of whom will perform with
her onstage. Guests include three-time
Academy Award winner
Stephen Schwartz
(Wicked),
Grammy Award winner
Julie Gold
('From A Distance') and
John Bucchino,
who will sing a duet with Andrea from his
recent Broadway musical
A Catered Affair.
Other guests include noted ASCAP composers
Francesca Blumenthal,
Craig Carnelia,
Babbie Green,
Christine Lavin
and
Tom Toce.
Shelly Markham,
Andrea's longtime music director and also a
respected composer, will lead a five piece
band and perform two of his own songs.
In addition, the concert will celebrate the
90th birthday of Andrea's mother
Helen Marcovicci,
who last year released her latest CD,
Seems Like Old Times.
During the war years she appeared as Helen
Stuart at top
New York nightclubs
including The Glass Hat, Bill Bertolotti's,
La Vie Parisienne and The Maisonette at the
St. Regis. Helen was invited to Paramount
Pictures for a screen test, but she turned
it down to raise her family.
Andrea's new CD,
As Time Goes By
scheduled for release May 19th features
favorites from her recording career, mostly
from out-of-print albums. Highlights include
?As Time Goes By? from
Marcovicci Sings Movies,
which she thinks of as 'America?s Favorite Song'; 'These
Foolish Things' from
'What Is Love?,
which, as Andrea says, "shimmers with
nostalgia"; and Maury Yeston's New Words,
the now-standard which she helped popularize
from her collection of the same name.
Two newly-recorded tracks, "Young At Heart"
and "The Lies of Handsome Men," feature
Shelly Markham on piano and Jered Egan on
bass. Andrea remembers, "In 1976 'Young at
Heart' was the very first song that I sang
at the legendary club, Reno Sweeney. And now
it's the closing number for my show
Marcovicci Sings Movies II. So, in many ways
I've come full circle. Music really does
keep me young at heart."
Marcovicci recently created
Skylark: A Centennial Tribute to Johnny
Mercer,
which was commissioned by the Savannah Music
Festival, Mercer's hometown. She will
perform the show later this year in
New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco. Andrea also will co-host the
23rd Annual Manhattan Association of
Cabarets and Clubs Awards on May 18 at BB
King's in
New York.
Andrea Marcovicci's 60th Birthday Concert is
part of The Town Hall's 2009 season that
concludes with Broadway By The Year:
Musicals of 1970 (June 15) and Bebel
Gilberto (June 19) as part of the JVC Jazz
Festival.
Built in 1921 by a group of suffragettes,
The Town Hall
began as a lecture hall and public forum for
debates. Over the decades, the stage has
been graced by Eleanor Roosevelt, Margaret
Sanger, Billie Holiday, Igor Stravinsky, Bob
Dylan and Miles Davis. Today the hall
flourishes as a popular, affordable venue,
boasting the hottest acts in rock, pop,
folk, cabaret, world music, comedy and
dance, including Billy Joel, Blondie, Elvis
Costello, Natalie Merchant, Graham Nash,
Liza Minnelli, Cyndi Lauper, Norah Jones,
Andre Watts, Henry Rollins, Joe Jackson,
Pink Martini, Regina Spector, Brian Adams,
Aimee Mann and Dawn Upshaw. For over a
decade, The Town Hall has hosted live
broadcasts of Garrison Keillor's Prairie
Home Companion. Over the past
two-and-a-half decades, The Town Hall has
produced a number of new and critically
acclaimed musical series, which include The
Century of Change, Not Just Jazz, Broadway
By The Year and The Broadway Cabaret
Festival