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Sunday, May 04, 2008

Composer, Singer Always in Tune

By Emily Van Cleve
For the Journal
      Singer Anne Runolfsson had one of those “pinch-myself,-I-can't-believe-it” moments last fall when she sang “Nothing” from “A Chorus Line” with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. Broadway composer Marvin Hamlisch, who wrote the songs for the musical, was at the podium.
       “ ‘Nothing' is special to me because that's the song I chose to sing at my audition for my first voice teacher when I was 14 years old,” Runolfsson said by phone from her home in Orange County, Calif. “To be on stage with Marvin conducting it was amazing.”
       During the past few years, Hamlisch and Runolfsson have teamed up to perform many of his songs. The wonderful thing about working with him, Runolfsson said, is that it's an easy, fun and comfortable experience.
       “When it comes to singing with him, he lets me have free rein,” she said. “He's really pretty loose and relaxed. I was afraid that he would have certain ideas about how his music should be sung, but he's never given me direction in terms of how to sing his music.”
       During the Santa Fe Concert Association's performance “Broadway Serenade” on Thursday night at the Lensic, Hamlisch will play many of his well-known tunes on the piano and will accompany Runolfsson as she sings Broadway songs he composed and several written by Jerome Kern and Richard Rodgers.
       “Comedy is always a big part of Marvin's shows,” Runolfsson said. “On stage, he interplays with the audience a lot. He talks and he plays. Marvin is a hilarious human being.”
       Runolfsson, who is as comfortable on a concert stage as she is in a Broadway theater, recently completed a two-year run on Broadway as Carlotta Giudicelli, the leading diva in Andrew Lloyd Webber's “Phantom of the Opera.” Before that engagement, she performed the title role in “Victor/Victoria” more than 120 times as the standby to Julie Andrews and Liza Minnelli. She also has appeared as a soloist at Carnegie Hall in New York, The Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. and the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam.
       More than a composer of Broadway musicals, Hamlisch has produced a prolific output of scores for films including “Sophie's Choice,” “Ordinary People,” “Three Men and a Baby,” “Bananas,” “Take the Money and Run” and “Save the Tiger.” He has won three Oscars, four Grammys, four Emmys, one Tony and three Golden Globe awards. “A Chorus Line” received the Pulitzer Prize.
       Hamlisch is the principal pops conductor with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and the pops conductor for the National Symphony and the San Diego Symphony Orchestra.
       Hamlisch also performs with guest tenor Stephen Lehew at 8 p.m. Friday, May 9, at the Spencer Theater in Alto, N.M., near Ruidoso. Tickets are $85. For tickets call (575) 336-4800 or go to www.spencertheater.com.
   

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If you go WHAT: The Santa Fe Concert Association presents “Broadway Serenade” with composer/pianist Marvin Hamlisch and singer Anne Runolfsson
       WHEN: 7:30 p.m. Thursday, May 8
       WHERE: Lensic Performing Arts Center, 211 W. San Francisco, Santa Fe
       HOW MUCH: Tickets: $30-$80. Call (505) 988-1234

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