There’s not really any way I’ve found yet to put into words what happened last Monday night (or the days leading up to it). On paper, it was a Gala celebrating
@townhallnyc and honoring
@lin_manuel , but in experience it was a mad-lib of the most colorful and vibrant musical tapestry I’ve ever helped bring to the stage, from
@alfredyankovic to
@dragonsandrivers and
@blackthought , to
@pianitis @ivanllanesmusic and
@joshuahenryofficial , from La Mancha to the Family Madrigal, from Washington Heights to Washington DC (with “The West Wing”), from Boleros to Broadway, and from “I always wanted a brother” to the Schuyler Sisters. The willingness of everyone saying yes to honor our friend Lin, and the polish and professionalism needed for the minimal rehearsal time, was astounding, and the only way we could have made an evening of one jaw-dropping moment after another- from Priscilla Lopez singing “Nothing” (50 years after A Chorus Line opened) to SuperLyrical, to Sondheim getting us in the gut, and Larson blowing the roof off the Town Hall.
I owe the deepest thanks and respect to my collaborators, chief mischief-maker
@deannaweiner who helped conceive and pull this off,
@holliccampbell who calmly kept us on track through it all,
@maestromayes whose fantastic
@popsofcolormusic handled this marathon in-stride,
@codyrenard and
@jcrystal44 and
@swasserm behind the scenes,
@nevstein with the epic prompt, and too many orchestrators and copyists to list but I admire and thank you all profusely. As we sang in the
@warriorsalbum closing number, “someday in the city our music will play…” and family, for one glorious night OUR music DID play, ALL of it. Muchisimas gracias.
