Hi, my name's Mairi Dorman-Phaneuf, and I'm here with Playbill to give you
a sneak peek into my new album, Music Broadway for cello and piano.
I've always loved these melodies.
You know, I grew up with The Sound of Music and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang,
and West Side Story.
And even though I went to study classically,
they were always kind of there.
And then when I discovered a life of being
a Broadway musician 20 years ago, I think now
gradually over time, I started finding myself playing these songs.
And then I found that The Light in the Piazza worked.
I could just play it on the cello with the piano.
And that led to wanting to do more and more.
And eventually I realized I should reach out to some of
the music directors like Michael Kosarin, And who knows Beauty and the Beast
probably better than most people, and ask them if they would want to create
something that we could do as a piece of chamber music.
So Michael Kosarin and Ted Sperling, Brad Haak, they all took these
iconic melodies and figured out how to make them work for cello.
And piano is not as straightforward as you think, because you take the lyrics
away from a song and there's a very specific kind of melody,
certainly that I feel works on the cello or the harmonies
that drive the song Send In the Clowns.
I love the song.
But until Billy Stritch did his version of the arrangement,
that changes a little bit towards the end.
I didn't think it could work.
Me just playing the melody.
So it's kind of a trial and error.
There were some that I tried that I don't think did work,
and they're not on the album.
And there are some others that I love that I hope to do another album.
But yeah, it's I find that moving bass lines against the melody is something
that I've I've noticed comes up a lot in these in these songs that I've chosen.
So there's just a lot going on harmonically.
To collaborate with Michael Kosarin
in a studio when he's written this beautiful thing.
I was just mostly grateful that they wanted to do it.
I think they're all classically trained pianists.
And I think they it seemed like they enjoyed the process
of creating something that two musicians can play together as pure chamber music.
And they love these songs as much as I do.
So I tried to let that be the baseline and not get too caught up in the fact
that...certainly with Ted, you know, he's been my conductor a few times,
and I'm just very, very
grateful to them for wanting to do it in the first place.
The one that I'm playing today,
which is a combination of Richard Rodgers melodies to create a medley,
to play Edelweiss, to play Something Good
that just feels, you know, my six year old, seven year
old self is just very happy.
And then same with Hushabye Mountain.
There was something that's so pure and childlike about the excitement for me
and that the Beauty and the Beast fantasy is unlike anything I've heard.
It's it's such a different kind of style of writing.
I love that, too.
I love Send in the clowns.
I'm always looking to Light in the Piazza.
So to answer your question, no, I genuinely can can't pick a favorite.
I guess I hope that the world of classical music and Broadway
won't. Sometimes I feel like
they're disparate, that they're somehow thought of as different art forms.
And I guess I don't feel that way.
And I don't think the collaborators on this album feel that way.
So I hope people can just enjoy
the beauty of what this music is and this American art form
that I'm so proud to have been a part of for 20 years.
So it's just showcasing that, really.
And now we're going to play for you with my friend Larry Yurman on piano.
We're going to play Ted Sperling's beautiful arrangement of Richard
Rodgers waltz medleys.
Thank you for watching.
Thank you, Playbill.
Thank you, Feisntein's/54 Below and the digital album is available
now. Hope you enjoy.