“Fast, funny, and Irreverent! NEWSical makes it possible to get high on hilarity,” says The New York Times, and one of its stars, John West, is on Stage Notes this week. Don’t miss this week’s hilarious edition of Stage Notes Saturday at noon (EST) on WXXI (91.5). Follow this link for stream: http://interactive.wxxi.org/listen.

JOHN WALTON WEST

OFF-BROADWAY / NATIONAL TOURS
NEWSICAL THE MUSICAL Performer Theatre Row – Kirk Theatre
THE DROWSY CHAPERONE Man in Chair National Tour
THE PRODUCERS Carmen Ghia National Tour
REGIONAL THEATRE
THE PRODUCERS Carmen Ghia Pittsburgh Civic Light Opera
YOU CAN’T TAKE IT WITH YOU Tony Florida Repertory Theatre
THE PRODUCERS Carmen Ghia Westchester Broadway Theatre
THE WOMAN IN BLACK The Actor Bethel Theatre
MOBY DICK: THE MUSICAL Moby/Coffin Seaside Music Theatre
(American Premiere)
THE LOST COLONY The Historian RIHA, dir. Terrence Mann
THE ROYAL FAMILY McDermott Seaside Music Theatre
Y.A.G.M., CHARLIE BROWN Linus Bethel Theatre
BAMBOOZLED! Dr. Graziano Chattanooga Theatre Centre
DISNEY’S ALADDIN The Genie Seaside Music Theatre
UNIVERSITY THEATRE
A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM Oberon Tennessee Governor’s School
THE IMPORTANCE OF
BEING EARNEST Jack Northern Kentucky University
ROMEO AND JULIET Romeo Northern Kentucky University
THE ELEPHANT MAN Treves Corbett Theatre
SWEET CHARITY Oscar Corbett Theatre
THE IMAGINARY INVALID M. Diaforius Corbett Theatre
THE CRUCIBLE Parris Corbett Theatre
BAT BOY: THE MUSICAL Dr. Parker Northern Kentucky University
JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR Peter Northern Kentucky University
BABES IN ARMS Marshall Northern Kentucky University

Broadway veteran Karen Mason is this week’s guest on Stage Notes. She’s currently starring as The Queen Hearts in the new Frank Wildhorn musical Wonderland, playing at the Marquis Theatre in New York City. In addition, music from David Burnham’s (Wicked, The Light in the Piazza) soon to be released new CD, One Day, will be featured. Don’t miss Stage Notes Saturday at 12 p.m. (EST) on WXXI (91.5). Stream at wxxi.org.

KAREN MASON BIOGRAPHY

Karen Mason has starred on Broadway, Off-Broadway, television, and recording: and “has few peers when it comes to ripping the roof off with her amazing voice that knows no bounds!” (TheatreScene.net) Karen is a ten-time MAC Award winner and has won the MAC Award for Major Female Vocalist of the Year for six consecutive years. She has also won the 2006 Nightlife Award for Major Female Vocalist and has three Bistro Awards.

Ms. Mason most recently originated the role of The Queen of Hearts in the pre-Broadway production of WONDERLAND at The David A. Straz Center for The Performing Arts in Tampa, FL. She originated the role of Tanya on Broadway in Abba’s MAMMA MIA!, and was awarded a 2002 Drama Desk nomination as Best Actress. Her other leading roles include Norma Desmond in SUNSET BOULEVARD, which she performed to critical acclaim and standing ovations on Broadway and in Los Angeles for three years; Velma von Tussel in the final Broadway company of HAIRSPRAY; “Monotony” singer, Mazeppa in JEROME ROBBINS’ BROADWAY; Rosalie in CARNIVAL (another Drama Desk nomination); plus featured roles in Broadway’s TORCH SONG TRILOGY; and PLAY ME A COUNTRY SONG.

Karen won the Outer Critics Circle Award for her performance in AND THE WORLD GOES ‘ROUND, and starred Off-Broadway in her own show KAREN MASON SINGS BROADWAY, BEATLES AND BRIAN.

Her television appearances include the hit dramas ED and LAW & ORDER: SVU. Film credits include SLEEPING DOGS LIE and A CHORUS LINE.

In regional theatre, Karen starred in the world premiere of the stage production of WHITE CHRISTMAS, (playing the Rosemary Clooney role at St. Louis Muni Opera), SIDE BY SIDE BY SONDHEIM (Coconut Grove Playhouse in Florida), GYPSY (Sundance Theatre in California), the world premiere of ONE TOUGH COOKIE (Apple Tree Theatre in Chicago), HEARTBEATS (Goodspeed Opera House in NY) and COMPANY (Huntington Theatre in Boston). Most recently in New York, Karen starred in the one-woman musical about Dorothy Parker YOU MIGHT AS WELL LIVE.

Karen has headlined Carnegie Hall, The Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, Feinstein’s at The Regency, Rainbow & Stars, the Algonquin, Arci’ Place, The Supper Club and The Ballroom in NYC; The Cinegrill and the UCLA/ASCAP Concert Series in Los Angeles; The Plush Room in San Francisco; and Davenport’s in Chicago.

She has shared concert stages with Luciano Pavarotti, Rosemary Clooney, Liza Minnelli, Michael Feinstein, Jerry Herman, and John Kander & Fred Ebb, among others. Karen has given concerts in the United Kingdom, Sweden, Brazil, Scotland, Tokyo and Osaka. Her starring symphonic performances include The New York Pops with Skitch Henderson, The Oklahoma Philharmonic with Joel Levine, the premier performance of The Chicagoland Pops, The Indianapolis Philharmonic, and the St. Louis Symphony with John McDaniel.

In addition to her live performances, her voice graces the soundtrack of JEFFREY (Varese Sarabande), the studio cast recording of WONDERFUL TOWN (Jay Records), the original cast album of AND THE WORLD GOES ‘ROUND(RCA Victor), THE CHILD IN ME Vol.1 (Harbinger Records) and LOST IN BOSTON II (Varese Sarabande).

In 2005, Karen released her fifth universally acclaimed CD, SWEETEST OF NIGHTS, after winning the 2002 MAC Award for Major Female Recording of the Year for WHEN THE SUN COMES OUT. Her other CD’s are BETTER DAYS (featuring the 1998 Emmy winning song, “Hold Me”, by Brian Lasser); NOT SO SIMPLY BROADWAY; and her live recording CHRISTMAS! CHRISTMAS! CHRISTMAS!(all on Zevely Records).

Tony Award winner Garth Fagan is this week’s guest on Stage Notes. Tune to WXXI (91.5) at 12:00 p.m. (EST) on Saturday March 26th to hear how he conceived and implemented the choreography for The Lion King. Songs from The Lion King will be featured. Stream at wxxi.org.

Critics have called Garth Fagan “a true original,” “a genuine leader,” and “one of the great reformers of modern dance.” Fagan is the founder and artistic director of the award-winning and internationally acclaimed Garth Fagan Dance, now celebrating its 40th Anniversary season. A Tony and Olivier award winner, Fagan continually renews his own distinctive dance vocabulary, which draws on many sources: sense of weight in modern dance, torso-centered movement and energy of Afro-Caribbean, speed and precision of ballet, and the rule breaking experimentation of the post-moderns. “Originality has always been Mr. Fagan’s strong suit, not least in his transformation of recognizable idioms into a dance language that looks not only fresh but even idiosyncratic,” writes Anna Kisselgoff of The New York Times.

For his path-breaking choreography for Walt Disney’s The Lion King, Fagan was awarded the prestigious 1998 Tony Award for Best Choreography. He also received the 1998 Drama Desk Award, 1998 Outer Critics Circle Award, 1998 Astaire Award, 2000 Laurence Olivier Award, 2001 Ovation Award, and the 2004 Helpmann Award for his work on the Broadway musical, which opened in fall 1997 to extraordinary critical praise. Fagan’s distinguished work in the theatre also includes the first fully staged production of the Duke Ellington street opera, Queenie Pie at the Kennedy Center in 1986 and the opening production of Joseph Papp’s New York Shakespeare Festival’s Shakespeare Marathon: A Midsummer Night’s Dream, (1988), set in Brazil and directed by A.J. Antoon.

In the world of concert dance, Fagan choreographs primarily for Garth Fagan Dance. His recent work, Mudan 175/39, was named by The New York Times as the third of the top six dance watching moments of 2009. Fagan has also produced commissions for a number of leading companies, including his first work en pointe, Footprints Dressed in Red, for the Dance Theatre of Harlem; a solo for Judith Jamison, Scene Seen for the debut of the Jamison Project; Jukebox for Alvin for the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater; and Never No Lament for the Jose Limon Company; and Ellington Elation, part of a triad of pieces commissioned by New York City Ballet in honor of Duke Ellington’s centenary and New York City Ballet’s 50th anniversary. Fagan began his career when he toured Latin America with Ivy Baxter and her national dance company from Jamaica. Baxter, and two other famed dance teachers from the Caribbean, Pearl Primus and Lavinia Williams, were major influences on Fagan. In New York City, Fagan studied with Martha Graham, Jose Limon, Mary Hinkson, and Alvin Ailey, who were all central to his development. Fagan was director of Detroit’s All-City Dance Company, and principal soloist and choreographer for Detroit Contemporary Dance Company and Dance Theatre of Detroit.

Fagan’s Additional Honors and Distinctions

In October 2001, Mr. Fagan a native of Jamaica was presented with the Order of Distinction in the rank of Commander: a national honor bestowed upon him by the Jamaican government. In August 1998, he received that country’s Special Gold Musgrave Medal, for his “Contribution to the World of Dance and Dance Theater.” The evening before at Prime Minister P.J. Patterson’s Independence Gala, Mr. Fagan was presented with the Prime Minister’s Award, a plate bearing the signatures of all the Prime Ministers of Jamaica, acknowledging his achievements.

Fagan is a Chancellor’s Award-winning Distinguished University Professor Emeritus of the State University of New York, and he taught for over three decades at the State University of New York at Brockport. In the fall of 2003, Fagan received the George Eastman Medal from the University of Rochester for “outstanding achievement and dedicated service.” He holds honorary doctorates from the Juilliard School, the University of Rochester, Nazareth College of Rochester, and Hobart and William Smith Colleges. In 2001, he was the recipient of the Golden Plate Award and was inducted into the American Academy of Achievement. In 1996, he was one of only twenty-five American scholars, artists, professionals and public figures to receive the title Fulbright 50th Anniversary Distinguished Fellow.

Fagan also received the 2001 Samuel H. Scripps American Dance Festival Award, “established to honor those great choreographers who have dedicated their lives and talent to the creation of our modern dance heritage.” He is also the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, the prestigious three-year Choreography Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. In recognition of his contribution to modern dance, Fagan has received the Dance Magazine Award for “significant contributions to dance during a distinguished career” and the “Bessie” Award (New York Dance and Performance Award) for Sustained Achievement. Other awards include the Monarch Award from the National Council for Culture and Art, the Lillian Fairchild Award, and the Arts Achievement Award from his alma mater, Wayne State University.

RENT-heads will be thrilled that stage and recording artist Joe Donohoe is this week’s guest on Stage Notes. Tune in and hear Joe share many behind the scenes stories about being in the role of Mark Cohen and working with RENT’s creative team. Songs from his new CD A New Rising will be featured. Saturday at 12:00 p.m. (EST) on WXXI and 9:00 p.m. (EST) on WITH. Stream at wxxi.org.

Joe Donohoe hails from Littleton, Colorado. Broadway Tour: RENT. Off-Broadway: Serenade. . Recent LA credits: Side by Side by Sondheim, Schoolhouse Rock Too, Sweeney Todd, shAme (a rock opera), and the award winning rock opera, Lovelace, which also had a month stint at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Film/TV: Malcolm in the Middle, The Surfer King, and 3 for Anna. Joe is co-owner of the Tinseltone Carolers (tinseltonecarolers.com). He is a graduate of Shenandoah Conservatory. Joe’s Alternative/Rock album, can be purchased on iTunes. Visit joedonohoe.com.

Donohoe is a young singer poised to burst upon the music scene in LA, Denver and beyond. With an achingly commercial, yet eminently credible album recorded and ready to go, Joe is a charismatic performer whose name will undoubtedly soon be known well beyond the confines of California and Colorado.

The route to LA has seen Joe travel the length and breadth of the US. Originally from Littleton, Colorado, Joe first took centre stage upon leaving high school, fronting Last Exit, a band which, in a short time, gained a large Denver/Boulder following and extensive local radio airplay. Destined to move onward and upward, Joe headed east to study music at a conservatory in Virginia, but before long had been snapped up to join the national tour of cult rock opera RENT.

Here Joe found a musical soulmate in Casey Mahoney, the tour’s guitarist, and the two immediately began writing songs together while on the road. With the RENT tour covering thousands and thousands of miles, criss-crossing the USA, Joe used the opportunity to play out his new songs as he went, at small, late-night venues in numerous towns and cities, honing the material and picking up a dedicated fan base along the way.

After leaving the tour, Joe first lived in New York, while Casey headed home to LA, and writing and recording continued via the Internet. New York gigs followed, notably at the Mean Fiddler and the Cutting Room, the latter a full band show to try out the material, destined for the album, with Casey jetting in from California to join Joe and top New York musicians for the sell-out gig.

Quickly realizing the creative process would be made a lot easier with the writing team living in the same city, Joe relocated permanently to the West Coast, and with a producer (Jeffery David) on-board, completed recording the album, drawing in musicians who have played with artists as diverse as Ringo Starr, David Lee Roth and Bette Midler. The result is 11 fantastic tracks– alternative rock, commercial enough to promise extensive airplay, yet edgy enough to attract a credible, young audience. With the album ready to go, LA and Denver shows in the pipeline, a thirst for success, and the talent to match, Joe Donohoe is set to take the scene by storm. The journey begins here…

Heard on Denver’s Alice 105.9 and 93.3 KTCL

“I just really like this album…” – Sam Hill, DJ at Alice 105.9, Denver, CO

“Remarkable Pop songs that convey to the audience surprising variety, complicated emotion and a sense of confidence and competence that smacks of promising music careers.” – TruBlu, Colorado Music Buzz

“‘Scumbag’ is a pop gem.” – IndieMusic.com

“Well-conceived choruses…solid musicianship, great production, nice song diversity, and yes, the girls will be crooning over him…a new Jason Mraz.” – The Swami, Colorado Music Buzz

“Joe Donohoe is on the scene and he is bringing “it” fiercely with his latest offering: A New Rising…” – Charlotte D Aberrant, Colorado Music Buzz

Tony nominated Jill O’Hara is this week’s guest on Stage Notes. Tune in and find out why Burt Bacharach wrote I’ll Never Fall in Love Again specifically for her. All this and more on Stage Notes Saturday, February 19th at noon on classical 91.5. Stream at wxxi.org.

Praised by Backstage Magazine for “one of those rare voices with a soothing, almost hypnotic quality,” award winning vocalist and actress Jill O’Hara has thrilled audiences with her recordings, concerts, TV appearances, film and stage roles. From guest starring television performances on the Merv Griffin, Ed Sullivan and David Frost Shows; live performances at Lincoln Center, Town Hall and London’s King’s Head Theatre, to her Tony nominated role in the musical Promises, Promises, Jill O’Hara’s talents has no bounds.

Winning a Backstage Magazine Bistro Award for her live club performances at Danny’s Skylight Room, Eighty-eights and The Ballroom, she earned audience and critical acclaim with noted New York Times critic Stephen Holden saying “not many singers meld a Broadway theatricality and a folk-pop torchiness with the naturalness and personality of Jill O’Hara.”

Her other notable nightclub engagements included The Bitter End, The Village Gate and Café Wha, where she shared the bill with Richard Pryor and Richie Havens. Her one-woman show in London’s West End, Jill and Her Jacks, played to audience and critical acclaim.

While Jill’s recordings have been few and far between, her efforts have been memorable and have received universal praise from critics, radio disc jockeys and listeners alike. She has the distinction of introducing to the world the pop classics I’ll Never Fall In Love Again and Whoever You Are, I Love You from the Grammy Award-winning album Promises, Promises and Good Morning Starshine from the original off-Broadway cast album of the ground breaking musical Hair.

Her solo recording debut, 1993′s Jill O’Hara became a classic and favorite of disc jockeys and critics, earning a spot as “One Of The Ten Best Recordings Of the Year” by Backstage Magazine. With all of the initial copies sold out, the recording became an in-demand, cult favorite that is garnering high prices for used copies on auction sites such as Ebay and amazon.com. Fans will now be delighted to know that O’Hara has re-released the album in conjunction with Jill O’Hara Alone Together.

Her first release in fifteen years, Jill O’Hara Alone Together is an eclectic collection of standards and more contemporary material from Randy Newman and Amanda McBroom. Backed by some of NY’s premiere jazz musicians, including pianist/arranger Bill Mays (Frank Sinatra, Al Jarreau), arranger, conductor, songwriter and Grammy nominee Byron Olson, bass player David Finck (Tony Bennett, Aretha Franklin) and sax player Tim Ries (Norah Jones, Sheryl Crow, Rolling Stones), the long awaited recording is a triumph for Jill O’Hara.

In just a short time, the long awaited release has been greeted with instant acclaim. It was immediately premiered by WNCY’s Jonathan Schwartz Saturday Show, who heralded it as “a richly intelligent work,” while WBAI Radio’s David Rothenberg praised it saying “I was stunned by her interpretive powers …just beautiful.” In the short time of it’s release, Jill O’Hara Alone Together has already been named “One of the Two Outstanding CD’s” by Playbill Magazine and “One of the Ten Best CDs of the Year” by Sound Advice/ Talkin Broadway while receiving Broadway World.com’s highest rating of 5 out of 5 discs. Sound Advice critic Rob Lester called it “compelling listening,” and raved “Jill O’Hara communicates and captivates and her voice and tales stay in the ear and mind to linger long after the notes fade away.” Both of these landmark recordings are available on iTunes, amazon.com, rhapsody.com and jilloharamusic.com.

However, it will be for her memorable stage roles that O’Hara made her initial and indelible mark on the entertainment world. Becoming the toast of Broadway by the time she was 21 years old, in rapid succession, she originated leading roles in three hit musicals. She has the distinction of originating the female lead in the very first Public Theater production of Hair (that performance is now immortalized on the special commemorative cast album CD) before going on to a leading role opposite Joel Grey in the Tony Award-winning musical George M!. But it was starring above the title opposite Jerry Orbach in the Burt Bacharach-Hal David-Neil Simon musical Promises, Promises, that immortalized her. That performance earned Jill the Tony nomination for Best Actress-Musical Star, in addition to a Theater World Award and New Jersey Journal Award for Best Actress in a Musical.

A serious actress, as well as a musical star, Jill starred in the film Pigeons, directed by John Dexter and appeared in many regional theater and summer stock productions opposite such stars as Sid Ceasar.

This week’s guest on Stage Notes is Broadway composer/lyricist Scott Alan. Tune to classical 91.5 at noon on Saturday, February 12th to hear this fascinating interview. Songs from Scott’s CDs will be featured. Stream at wxxi.org.

Scott Alan

Scott wrote the book, music and lyrics for the musical Detour in Los Angeles.  Since returning to New York City five years ago, many of Broadway’s elite have sung his music, including Liz Callaway, Shoshana Bean, Adriane Lenox, Stephanie J. Block, Cheyenne Jackson, Eden Espinosa and more, all of which can be found featured on his debut CD Dreaming Wide Awake: The Music of Scott Alan now available on his website and iTunes. He has sold out concerts of his music in New York City at The Duplex Cabaret Theatre, The Laurie Beechman Theatre and Birdland, London’s West End’s The Duchess Theatre and San Francisco’s Rrazz Room.   In October 2008, Alan released the follow up CD, Keys, which features more of Broadway and West End elite singing his work, including Sutton Foster, Norm Lewis,  Kerry Ellis, Randy Graff, Megan Hilty, Hadley Fraser, Julia Murney and many more.  In the fall of 2010, Alan released his newest album, What I Wanna Be When I Grow Up., featuring Christiane Noll, Darius de Haas, Christopher Sieber, Willemijn Verkaik, Patina Miller and more.

His love for new talent helped conceive and produce the acclaimed monthly series, ‘Monday Nights, New Voices’ at the Duplex Cabaret Theatre, which is now heading into it’s eighth year.  The series honors and celebrates new vocalists and new writers in the theatre community.  Alan also produced and directed the Neo2 Benefit Concert at the York Theatre in 2006 featuring some of todays brightest up and coming composers and lyricists, sung by some of Broadways greatest performers. More information available at www.scottalan.net.

Genny Lis Padilla, who is currently in the role of Nina in the national Broadway tour of In the Heights, will be my guest on Stage Notes Saturday at 12:00 p.m. (EST) on WXXI (91.5). Stream at wxxi.org.

As a Christmas music icon, Amy Grant is the perfect guest to have on Stage Notes Christmas Day at 12:00 p.m. (EST) on WXXI and 9:00 p.m. (EST) on WITH. Listen anywhere at wxxi.org. Mixed with Amy sharing some of her favorite Christmas memories, the program will also feature a blend of Christmas music she’s recorded throughout her career.

With six Grammys, numerous Dove Awards, a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and numerous other accolades to her credit, Amy Grant is an American music icon who has erased lines between genres and earned the respect of fans and peers with her honesty, vulnerability and ceaseless creativity. Whether laying her soul bare in her 2008 Book “Mosaic: Pieces of My Life So Far” or exploring faith and family in a diverse catalog of hits from “El Shaddai” to “Baby Baby,” Grant’s artistry has continually resonated with audiences since she first hit the national spotlight as a fresh-faced teen with a guitar three decades ago.

Born in Augusta, Georgia in 1960 during the residency of her doctor father, Grant was still a baby when her family (she’s the youngest of four daughters) moved back to its native Nashville. Her unlikely rise to icon status was sparked while she was working part-time sweeping floors and demagnetizing tapes in a Nashville studio. She had been singing in church and school for years and a friend, producer Brown Bannister, allowed her to use the studio to duplicate a tape of her original songs that she wanted to give to her family. But a Word Records producer heard the tape and played it over the phone for company executives. The 15-year-old was signed almost immediately.

Her self-titled 1977 debut album introduced a fresh-faced young woman with a fresh voice. A series of albums followed, including 1979′s Father’s Eyes which eventually went gold.

In 1982, Amy Grant was the first Contemporary Christian artist to reach platinum status with the release of her album, Age to Age, which also secured her a Grammy for Best Pop Gospel Performance.

Though Contemporary Christian music was clearly a growing force in the mid-’80s, no artist had yet crossed over to mainstream success. Then came Grant’s 1985 album Unguarded. Cracking the pop Top 40, earning platinum and winning a Grammy, Unguarded was a challenge within her gospel audience for its secular nature but it proved a watershed for the genre. The track “Find A Way” reached both Top 30 pop and Top 10 Adult Contemporary and its video even aired on MTV.

Now signed to major label A&M Records, another sign of her crossover appeal, her platinum 1988 album Lead Me On won the fifth of her Grammys and spun off the Top 40 AC hit “Saved By Love.” 1991′s Heart In Motion, her first Top 10 pop album and at five times platinum her biggest seller, brought together “Baby Baby” (#1 pop/#1 AC), “Every Heartbeat” (#2 pop/#2 AC), “That’s What Love Is For” (#7 pop/#1 AC), “Good For Me” (#8 pop/#4 AC) and “I Will Remember You” (#20 pop/#2 AC). The double platinum, House Of Love (1994) yielded several more top 10 pop hits.

Amy has continued to write and record music about life and love; faith and heartbreak; hope and healing. Her music continues to be part of the fabric of life for long time listeners and brand new fans.

In 2005, Amy hosted the NBC prime time series “Three Wishes” which brought her into millions of living rooms across the U.S. each Friday night.

In 2006, Amy added a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame to her list of accolades. With friends, family, industry VIPs and fans in attendance, Grant’s husband/country music star Vince Gill and founder of A&M Records Jerry Moss spoke at the September 19th ceremony, along with Johnny Grant, Honorary Mayor of Hollywood and Walk of Fame Chairman.

On October 16, 2007, Amy published her first book, Mosaic: Pieces of My Life So Far (Flying Dolphin Press/Doubleday), a collection of her favorite memories from her life and her career. Also in 2007, Grant released her first-ever career spanning hits collection, Greatest Hits. Released around the world in CD and Special Edition CD/DVD packages, Greatest Hits features 19 tracks culled from all of Grant’s studio albums.

In the fall of 2008, Amy embarked on a 20 city “Lead Me On” reunion tour to celebrate the 20 years that had passed since that landmark recording was released. To coincide with the tour, EMI released a special “20th Anniversary Collector’s Edition” of the original Lead Me On album, which includes a bonus disc of previously unreleased live tracks and new acoustic recordings of a few songs.

After the “Lead Me On” tour finished, Amy joined her husband, Vince Gill, for a Christmas tour that featured many of the classic songs they have both recorded as well as several new songs from Amy’s newest release, The Christmas Collection.

Amy Grant has done more than simply be successful in two different music worlds; in her music, in fact thanks to her music, she has brought those two worlds together.

Saturday, November 27th at noon on WXXI, Matthew West will be the guest on Stage Notes. (Streaming at wxxi.org.)

Songwriters are known to be an introspective breed whose personal experiences shape their music, and over the years Matthew West has definitely plumbed the depths of his soul for sweet inspiration. Yet on his new album, West looked to his audience to provide grist for his creative mill. The result is The Story of Your Life, a spectacular body of work that tackles a diverse array of real life subject matter and finds West exploring tender territory rarely tapped in contemporary pop music.

“I know how to write songs about my life, my experiences and my journey, my faith and my love,” West says. “Yet along comes an idea for a record called ‘Story of Your Life’ and instead of writing what I know and writing songs about my life, the idea is to turn the microphone around to the people who listen to my music. I wanted them to send me their stories.”

In a way, his new Sparrow Records album seems to be a natural follow up to West’s previous release, Something to Say, which spawned the GRAMMY ® nominated, 14-week No. 1 radio hit “The Motions.” “A lot of times the world will make people feel disqualified or not valuable or not talented enough just to keep them quiet so that they could just slide by in life without really ever making the impact that they are meant to make in the world,” West relates. “So that was the message of the last album—‘you’ve got something to say!’ Before recording this record I was praying about it [asking] ‘what does this record need to be about?’ and I felt like this was on my heart—‘okay, you told them they had something to say, now let them say it.’”

Soliciting stories from his audience is certainly a novel idea, but West has always taken a fresh, approach to his career. His creativity combined with a faithful heart and genuine love for people has made him one of the Christian music community’s most accessible and respected artists. A pastor’s son, West grew up in Downers Grove, Illinois and released three independent projects before signing to a major label and issuing his first studio album, Happy. The project yielded the hit “More,” which topped the chart for nine weeks and became the most played song on Christian radio in 2004. The following year, he released History, an acclaimed collection that included the hit title track and the instant classic “Only Grace.”

After going through career-threatening vocal surgery in May 2007, the singer/songwriter re-emerged in early 2008 with the appropriately titled album Something to Say, serving up such memorable hits as “You Are Everything” and “The Motions.” In addition to writing songs that have made him a Dove Award nominated artist in the Christian market, West’s songwriting prowess has also earned him the respect of artists in other musical genres. His songs have been recorded by multi-platinum country trio Rascal Flatts and other country artists such as JoDee Messina, Steel Magnolia and Billy Ray Cyrus. West’s songs have also been cut by other Christian artists, including Michael W. Smith, Mark Schultz, Mandisa, Jump5, Sara Groves, Joy Williams, Salvador, Natalie Grant, PureNRG and Point of Grace.

Though he’s been writing hit songs for years, West says working on his new album was like “stepping out into this unknown world” as he reached out to people to share their stories. “I went to my Facebook page and my Twitter account,” he says of announcing his intentions. “I didn’t want it to seem like a contest so I didn’t go over the top in promoting it. I just went to my core fan base and said, ‘here’s the idea. If you want to send me your story, send me your story.’ We created a link on my website where they could type in their story and click send. We got over a thousand stories the first two days. I couldn’t believe just the amount of stories that came in from every state in the U.S., and then there were 20 different countries represented. I received letters Malaysia, Scotland and all over the world. It was overwhelming.”

West began collecting stories in February 2010 and spent March and April in a cabin outside of Nashville turning the stories he’d received into songs. “I’d be at the cabin and my manager would bring me a shipment and would just dump these stacks and stacks of paper,” he says of more than 10,000 responses he received. “I would sit in this cabin and read these stories. I had a big dry erase board and I would write down ideas. I would write them down in red and whenever I would finish a song, I would write that title in blue. At the very beginning, there were hundreds of titles in red and then slowly, but surely the scales began to tip more towards the blue.”

West admits he discovered a lot about people during the process of writing the album. “I’ve learned that if somebody is asked the question, ‘what was the defining moment in your life? or ‘what has shaped you to become who you are today?’ nine times out of 10, people aren’t going to necessarily tell you a story about the happiest moments of their life,” West relates. “The mountain top experiences, the joys that we have, those are all defining moments in our lives, but the stories people were sharing with me were the weakest moments—the greatest trial they’ve ever faced, the illness that they suffered, the loved one that they lost, the abuse that they were a victim of or the addiction that they were dealing with. It was really heavy and in the first couple of days, I got pretty overwhelmed. Every day I went to the cabin and just read these stories and there were some days that I had to go for a walk in the woods. It was too much. The topics were not what I expected and I couldn’t believe that people were being so honest with me. A lot of the stories started with the sentence ‘I’ve never told this to anybody before, but I heard about what you are doing and something was just telling me I needed to write and tell you my story.’”

Most everyone who wrote said they hoped sharing their story would help another person dealing with the same issue. Matthew immediately realized he’d been given a sacred trust and that the songs he was writing would be among the most special works of his career. What emerged on The Story of Your Life is a powerful collection of songs that cover a diverse range of difficult subject matter. “Family Tree” is a poignant song inspired by a girl named Rebecca who shared the story of her dysfunctional family. As her homosexual father was dying and her parents were arguing yet again, her father’s partner responded to what they were hearing by saying, ”‘well I guess that is the legacy that you have,’” Rebecca shared in her letter to Matthew. Yet she recalls God speaking to her heart saying “’NO THAT IS NOT YOUR LEGACY. YOU HAVE MY LEGACY BECAUSE YOU ARE MY CHILD,’ and that truth made all the difference then, now and for eternity. To me, that’s one of the most defining moments on the record,” West says.

West admits he became sad and angry at the number of women that shared tales of abuse. Those stories coalesced into the compelling song “Broken Girl.” “I’m a dad, a father of two little girls, and I found myself just getting angry and asking ‘What kind of a world do we live in?’,” he says. “These people are sitting in church and these people are at my concerts and they’ve got this part of their past that is not their fault, but yet they carry it with them their whole lives and they don’t feel like they have anyone to talk to. I found myself writing songs out of different emotions than I’ve ever had. ‘Broken Girl’ is inspired by all of those stories and I wrote it really out of anger. You can hear the anger in the song, in the chords, the melody. When I sang it in the studio and I could feel how upset I was writing that song.”

Another of the album’s strongest tunes is “To Me,” which West wrote in response to a letter from a mother whose heart was aching over the way other kids cruelly treated her son in middle school. “So I wrote this song from the perspective of that parent,” West explains, “and it says, ‘they don’t know you like I know you and if they did I know they’d see. . .you are heaven’s finest invention by far, so even brighter than the brightest star, what I’d give to make you see who you are to me.’”

Another powerful song about parenthood is “One Less,” a song about adoption that West cites as one of his favorites on the album. “There are a lot of stories that inspired this song, but there was one specific one from a family in Tennessee that went about trying to adopt this little girl from Guatemala,” he relates. “It’s an amazing story of redemption, both for the child and for the parents.”

West says the most difficult song to write on the new record was the first single. “’My Own Little World’ was the hardest because I had to be honest about my life,” he says. “ Sometimes it hurts to see that on paper and to really let yourself be that honest and that vulnerable. I wrote this song while in the cabin and while being faced with parts of life that– on an every day basis– I choose to ignore. The song says, ‘I turn off the news when I don’t like what I see, it’s easy to do when it’s population me. But what if there’s a bigger picture? What if I’m missing out? What if there’s a greater purpose that I could be living now outside my own little world?’ That song was really written as a personal response to the stories that I had read and the questions that I started asking as I was looking into their world and looking at my own as well. I do turn off the news when it’s too ugly. I’d rather stay in my safe world. I was challenged by this experience and it really did change me. I look at my audience in a different way and the last verse is really is a prayer that I think is my prayer coming out of this experience. It says, ‘Father break my heart for what breaks yours, give me open hands and open doors, put your light in my eyes and let me see that my own little world is not about me.’”

Produced by industry veterans Brown Bannister and Pete Kipley, The Story of Your Life is a creative tour de force that challenged West as a songwriter and a man. Though it was a weighty project, it’s far from a heavy listening experience. “I wondered if this record might be the most depressing record that I’ve ever made because of the topics and nature, but I look at the songs now and it’s the opposite, it’s the most hopeful record that I’ve ever made,” he says. “In these songs, I feel this redemption and hope. It’s speaking encouragement to the middle school kid whose been made fun of. It’s speaking new legacy, new life to the family tree of the girl who is struggling with generational baggage.

“This record has changed me. I look at the world in a different way. The words of ‘My Little World’ are how it’s changed me. It’s not about me and that’s the irony of this record is that I’ve never been so excited about a record and it’s not about me. I’m the singer and the messenger and I connect with these songs, and it fires me up.”

Maureen McGovern will be my guest on Stage Notes this week at noon (EST) on WXXI and 9:00 pm (EST) on WITH.

MAUREEN MCGOVERN’s nearly 40 year career includes recordings, concerts, theater, film, television, radio and songwriting, all with a voice that defies categorization.

Her current PS Classics CD, A Long and Winding Road has been praised by The New York Times as “…a captivating musical scrapbook from the 1960s to the early 70s. Ms. McGovern’s vocal technique is second to none” and was voted by Playbill.com and TalkinBroadway.com among the “Best of 2008 Performances” and “Top 10 Vocal Recordings of 2008.” She has also received the “AFTRA AMEE Lifetime Sound Recording Award,” the “Nightlife Legend Award” (NYC), the “MAC Lifetime Achievement Award,” and “The Imagination Award” from Imagination Stage for her work with children, the arts and philanthropy.

Grammy nominated for “Best New Artist” (1973) and “Best Traditional Pop Vocal Performance” (1998), she shares a Grammy Award for “Best Musical Recording for Children” (2005) for her participation in the CD/DVD Songs from the Neighborhood: The Music of Mister Rogers. She also won the coveted Tokyo Music Festival Grand Prize Award (1975) for her performance of Paul Williams’ “Even Better than I Know Myself.”

Maureen’s recording career began with the Oscar winning International Gold Records “The Morning After” (Billboard #1) and “We May Never Love Like This Again” from the classic disaster films, “The Poseidon Adventure and The Towering Inferno. She also introduced the Oscar nominated song “Wherever Lover Takes Me” in the film, Gold. Other hit recordings include, “Can You Read My Mind?” from the motion picture, Superman and “Different Worlds” (Billboard Top 20 and #1 AC hit) from the ABC TV series, Angie. Other critically acclaimed recordings include songwriter tributes to George Gershwin, Harold Arlen, Richard Rodgers, Marilyn and Alan Bergman and her solo piano/voice albums, “Another Woman In Love” and “The Pleasure of His Company” with Emmy-winning, Grammy-nominated jazz pianist, Mike Renzi.
In 2005, Ms. McGovern returned to the Broadway stage, originating her Drama Desk nominated role of ‘Marmee’ in Little Women, The Musical and reprised that role in the 32 city 1st National Tour of Little Women, The Musical. Maureen made her Broadway debut as ‘Mabel’ in The Pirates of Penzance, starred as ‘Luisa’ in Nine with the late Raul Julia, and as ‘Polly Peachum’ in 3 Penny Opera with Sting. Off-Broadway, Maureen originated the role of ‘Mary’ in Brownstone. Critics and audiences alike were delighted with her definitive portrayal of ‘Mrs. Anna’ in the recent Broadway National Tour of The King and I.
Maureen performed in the East Coast Premiere of her one-woman show, A Long and Winding Road at Arena Stage in DC and the Huntington Theatre in Boston. She reprised her role of ‘Eleanor Bridges’in One Red Flower (formerly Letters from ‘Nam) in a moving Los Angeles benefit performance for New Directions, an organization whose mission is to empower veterans and facilitate their successful return to families and society. Regionally, she has performed in the West Coast premiere of William Finn’s Elegies at the Canon Theatre. Maureen starred as ‘Countess Aurelia’ in the historic revival of Jerry Herman’s musical Dear World (an adaptation of The Madwoman of Chaillot) and as ‘Madame Emery’ in The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, both at the Sundance Institute Theatre. In 2001, she made her dramatic debut as ‘Eleanor of Aquitaine’ in The Lion in Winter and originated the role of ‘Eleanor Bridges’ in the world premiere of Letters from ‘Nam in Boston. She starred as ‘Mary Turner’ in Of Thee I Sing for the Reprise Series at UCLA’s Freud Playhouse and also at the Kennedy Center and Brooklyn Academy of Music in tandem with Let ‘Em Eat Cake.

Maureen has also starred in Regional productions of The Sound of Music, South Pacific, Guys & Dolls (playing both ‘Sarah’ and ‘Adelaide’), and I Do, I Do. Her children’s musical, The Bengal Tiger’s Ball, had its Central Florida premiere in 1999, co-sponsored by Disney. She wrote the captivating music, co-created and starred in the production.
Feature films include Maureen’s roles as the ‘Nightclub Singer’ in The Towering Inferno and ‘Sr. Angelina,’ the guitar strumming nun in the comedy classic Airplane! and Airplane II: The Sequel, which was a fitting and hilarious finale to her early “Disaster Theme Queen” decade. Ms. McGovern can also be heard as the voice of ‘Rachel’ in the DreamWorks animated video/DVD Joseph: King of Dreams with Ben Affleck. Her television roles include One Life To Live, The Tracey Ullman Show, Pacific Blue, Duckman and Beyond Belief, and on radio, she spent three seasons as a frequent special guest on Garrison Keillor’s “American Radio Company of the Air.”

Maureen has been honored by Irish Magazine as one of the Top 100 Irish Americans, received the “Songs From The Heart Award” from NARAS and The American Music Therapy Association, the “CUNY (City University of New York) Lifetime Achievement Award” for making a remarkable difference in the lives of individuals and students with disabilities, the “Imagination Award” from Imagination Stage for her work with children, the arts and philanthropy, the “Festival of Children Foundation’s Founder’s Award” for her dedication to broadening and enriching the lives of children and has received a Doctorate of Music (Hon) from Youngstown State University.
Ms. McGovern is the President of the Maureen McGovern “Works of Heart” Foundation for Music and Healing, founded to address the emotional and inspirational needs of patients and caregivers. Its premier recordings include “Help Is On The Way” (in partnership with Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS) and Works of Heart: Songs of Hope, featuring a 30th anniversary recording of “The Morning After.”
She serves on the National Board of the Muscular Dystrophy Association and is Chairperson of the annual Shamrocks Against Dystrophy Campaign. Maureen has performed for 30 consecutive years on the Jerry Lewis MDA Labor Day Telethon, including serving as co-host in New York City for six years. Maureen supports music therapy and has been an Artist Spokesperson for the American Music Therapy Association since 2001.