5 minute read
STAGE SPOTLIGHT
Get Happy!
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MICHAEL FEINSTEIN CELEBRATES THE JUDY GARLAND CENTENNIAL WITH ‘ORCHESTRAL PREMIERE’ AT THE RADY SHELL
Spectacular! With “Miss Show Business” aka Judy Garland in the house and Michael Feinstein celebrating the Judy Garland Centennial, The Rady Shell at Jacobs Park in San Diego is going to be touched by her spiritual presence and revel in the showmanship of Feinstein and the San Diego Symphony. My goodness! This kind of show only happens once every 100 years . . . think about it. On Saturday, July 16, the audience will be “stomping at the Shell,” so to speak, and this jitterbug got the lowdown from the Ambassador of American Popular Music himself . . . Michael Feinstein. “Starry, Starry Night” is so right.
Is this your debut performance at The Rady Shell in San Diego?
This is indeed my debut performance at The Rady Shell. I’m very excited about it because I love performing with the San Diego Symphony. I love the feel of playing outdoors and I’ve watched the construction process of The Shell over the last several years. So, it’s gratifying and exciting to finally have the opportunity to perform there.
It’s also being described as an “orchestral premiere.” Can you tell me about that?
The Judy Garland show is something I’ve been performing for the last six to eight months. This will be the first incarnation of the show with a symphony orchestra, and I’m most excited about that. This is the debut of the full orchestral version of the show.
I haven’t been there since it was built but I heard the new acoustics are terrific . . . and it’s with Ted Sperling conducting the San Diego Symphony.
I too have heard that the new acoustics of The Shell are wonderful. I know it’s going to be a particularly resonant evening because it is always the connection with the audience that makes the performance of any given artist heightened by that energetic exchange. So, this will be particularly exciting for me.
What’s the rehearsal aspect like in putting together the Get Happy: Celebration of the Judy Garland Centennial for all of you?
The rehearsal aspect has been a very long process. After I came up with the basic idea of what I wanted to say about this icon, I started assembling different songs and anecdotes, and working with Elliott Forrest on the visual media that would accompany it. All of that makes it much more complex than doing a simpler show that isn’t as finely formed.
It was no small feat in deciding what to include in a concert that celebrates Judy Garland because of the formidable nature of all that she accomplished. The specific rehearsal with the orchestra will be on the day of the concert. But all of us will have had contact with the music prior to that. I’m also planning on rehearsing with Ted Sperling and Tedd Firth, who is the pianist for the show and also orchestrated the entire program for symphony. So Tedd Firth will be on hand to make sure all the orchestrations play well and without issue. Just to make sure all the elements are smooth for all of us.
Another amazing facet is in the multimedia aspect. Will you share a glimpse of that?
The multimedia part of the show is particularly exciting because I was given permission from the Garland family . . . her three children with whom I’m friends and happily close to make this a broader celebration. Using photographs that they supplied and home movies. So, it is something that is truly personal for me because I not only care about doing what I can to give a sense of who Judy Garland was and why she is still important, but also to please her family . . . to please her children.
The body of photographs on which we were able to draw between those supplied by her family and the historian John Fricke, number in 7,000 images. It was from that vast library that we very carefully chose the ones that will accompany the different aspects of her career. The dazzling thing about Judy Garland is that her life is documented so thoroughly in photographs, sound recordings, newspaper interviews and such. There was a dizzying amount of material to choose from, which made it all the more difficult but all the more gratifying when we were able to settle on a particular image that we felt that resonantly accompanied a musical performance or an anecdote.
“Just Judy and Michael” at the piano . . . how about that? Just how fun was it to pick the songs to sing for her in preparation?
For me, the highlight of the program includes my accompanying Judy Garland singing a song that she never publicly performed . . one that turned up in the last couple of years. Just when I thought that we had heard every Garland recording possible, I found this home recording of her singing the song, “I’ll Be Seeing You.” It would seem like a no-brainer that she would have sung that song when it became popular in the early 1940s. It was never documented that she sang it anywhere.
The particular recording and how I found it is kind of an eerie story. I was visiting a house that Judy Garland use to live in in the 1940s. I felt drawn to a wall in one of the rooms in the living room of the house and I touched it. It turned out to be a fake wall and behind that wall there were unlabeled home recordings. I was able to take those discs with me. It wasn’t until I got home and put them on my special archival turntable that I heard the voice of a 20-something Judy Garland singing “I’ll Be Seeing You.” It was spectacular, and I was gobsmacked. The thing that was amazing about it as well is that it was sung a cappella with no accompaniment, which made it possible for me to accompany her at the piano. So, it’s a world premiere of Judy Garland singing “I’ll Be Seeing You” and I get to play the piano while she does it!
Now, that is absolutely amazing! Sounds like this whole concert is truly a once-in-a-lifetime event. Thank you so very much Michael, and I’ll be seeing you and the symphony on July 16.
Thanks, Bill, and it was a pleasure talking with you.
