Show notes
Ilana interviewed JASON ROBERT BROWN live on the stage of City Center after the Encore Series Presentation of his song cycle "Songs for a New World" on the day his latest album "How We React and How We Recover" was released. In this intimate conversation Jason talks about being "adopted " by Hal Prince, his longtime collaboration with Daisy Prince, the joy and pain of winning Tony Awards for shows that had closed quickly and how he wrote the title song for his new album on the morning Donald Trump won the election and more....
Jason Robert Brown is the ultimate multi-hyphenate – an equally skilled composer, lyricist, conductor, arranger, orchestrator, director and performer – best known for his dazzling scores to several of the most renowned musicals of his generation, including the generation-defining “The Last Five Years”, his debut song cycle “Songs for a New World”, and the seminal “Parade”, for which he won the 1999 Tony Award for Best Score.
JASON ROBERT BROWN has been hailed as “one of Broadway’s smartest and most sophisticated songwriters since Stephen Sondheim” (Philadelphia Inquirer), and his “extraordinary, jubilant theater music” (Chicago Tribune) has been heard all over the world, whether in one of the hundreds of productions of his musicals every year or in his own incendiary live performances. Jason’s score for “The Bridges of Madison County,” a musical adapted with Marsha Norman from the bestselling novel, directed by Bartlett Sher and starring Kelli O’Hara and Steven Pasquale, received two Tony Awards (for Best Score and Orchestrations). “Honeymoon In Vegas,” based on Andrew Bergman’s film, opened on Broadway in 2015 following a triumphant production at Paper Mill Playhouse. His major musicals as composer and lyricist include: “13”, written with Robert Horn and Dan Elish, which began its life in Los Angeles in 2007 and opened on Broadway in 2008; “The Last Five Years”, which was cited as one of Time Magazine’s 10 Best of 2001 and won Drama Desk Awards for Best Music and Best Lyrics; “Parade,” written with Alfred Uhry and directed by Harold Prince, which premiered at Lincoln Center Theatre in 1998, and subsequently won both the Drama Desk and New York Drama Critics’ Circle Awards for Best New Musical, as well as garnering Jason the Tony Award for Original Score; and “Songs for a New World,” a theatrical song cycle directed by Daisy Prince, which played Off-Broadway in 1995, and has since been seen in hundreds of productions around the world.
As a soloist or with his band The Caucasian Rhythm Kings, Jason has performed sold-out concerts around the world. His newest collection, “How We React and How We Recover”, was released in June 2018 on Ghostlight Records. His previous solo album, “Wearing Someone Else’s Clothes”, was named one of Amazon.com’s best of 2005, and is available from Sh-K-Boom Records.
For the new musical “Prince of Broadway,” a celebration of the career of Harold Prince, Jason was the musical supervisor and arranger. Other recent New York credits as conductor and arranger include “Urban Cowboy the Musical” on Broadway; Oliver Goldstick’s play, “Dinah Was,” directed by David Petrarca, at the Gramercy Theatre and on national tour; and William Finn’s “A New Brain,” directed by Graciela Daniele, at Lincoln Center Theater. Jason has conducted and created arrangements and orchestrations for Liza Minnelli, John Pizzarelli, Tovah Feldshuh, and Laurie Beechman, among many others.
Jason studied composition at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, N.Y., with Samuel Adler, Christopher Rouse, and Joseph Schwantner. He lives with his wife, composer Georgia Stitt, and their daughters in New York City. Jason is a proud member of the Dramatists Guild and the American Federation of Musicians Local 802. Visit him on the web at www.jasonrobertbrown.com.
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