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Barbara Cook
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Barbara Cook (born October 25, 1927) is a Tony Award-winning American singer and actress who first came to prominence in the 1950s after creating roles in the Broadway musicals Candide and The Music Man, among others. In the seventies, she began a second career that continues to this day as a cabaret and concert singer. Cook is widely recognized as one of the "premier interpreters" of musical theatre songs and standards, in particular the songs of composer Stephen Sondheim.[1]
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Barbara Cook’s engagement at the Café Carlyle has been extended through May 27 due to the death of Bobby Short. She presents two Bobby Short signature tunes, a flapper anthem, Nashville Nightingale, and the strikingly poignant Bojangles of Harlem, written by Jerome Kern with Dorothy Fields. Selections from Dorothy Fields and Arthur Schwartz’ A Tree Grows in Brooklyn salute Fields whose centennial, like Harold Arlen’s, we celebrate this year; the delightful I’m Like a New Broom and a melodic I’ll Buy You a Star, are followed by a more wistful Make the Man Love Me. In the same vein, Wally Harper had written songs for the Broadway musical, Irene, including the sprightly The World Must be Bigger Than an Avenue and a reflective bluesy tune with David Zippel, Another Mr. Right Left.
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The epitome of Broadway, Barbara Cook sets the standard for sheer artistry and elegance. Joining her on stage is four-time Tony® Award Winner Audra McDonald, at the Kimmel Center’s Verizon Hall on Sunday, March 18 at 7:30pm. Cook thrills audiences with Broadway classics and standards from the American Song Book; whereas McDonald who is presently in rehearsals for a New York production of 110 in the Shade, will deliver an array of Broadway favorites with contemporary music theater selections. In 2006 Cook debuted her solo concert at New York’s Metropolitan Opera Company, making her the first female pop singer to be presented by the MET in the company’s 123 year history. McDonald recently starred in John Doyle’s production of "Mahagonny" at the Los Angeles Opera.
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A singer with a warm, light soprano, Barbara Cook became a successful Broadway musical performer in the 1950s and '60s. In the '70s, she moved largely into cabaret singing, at which she was equally successful. Born Barbara Nell in Atlanta, GA, on October 25, 1927, she took an early interest in singing and appeared in kiddie shows as a child. At 14, she won the ten-dollar prize at an amateur-night contest at the Roxy Theatre in Atlanta, singing "My Devotion." In February 1948, accompanied by her mother, she moved to New York to pursue a career in musical theater. The composer Vernon Duke, after hearing her sing at an audition, recommended that she perform at Camp Tamiment, a summer resort in the Poconos, and in the summer of 1950 she was seen there by Max Gordon, who with his partner Herbert Jacoby ran the Blue Angel nightclub in New York.
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Recently inducted into the Broadway Hall of Fame, Tony, Grammy, and Drama Desk Award winner Barbara Cook was considered "Broadway's favorite ingenue" during the heyday of the Broadway musical. Cook made her Broadway debut in 1951 as the lead in the musical Flahooley. She went on to create the role of Cunegonde in the original production of Leonard Bernstein's Candide, a part she followed up with her interpretation of Marian the Librarian in the premiere production of Meredith Willson's The Music Man. Cook earned a Tony Award for this performance. In 1974 Cook began a creative 25-year partnership with musical arranger, accompanist, composer, dance arranger, and conductor Wally Harper. She launched a second career in subsequent years, as concert and cabaret artist.
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"In a musically imperfect world, there is still perfection in the voice of Barbara Cook. For anyone eulogizing the historic scores of a long-lost era of Broadway greatness, not to worry. Somebody is still singing them with purity and passion. She is Barbara Cook, and she sings them for the angels to applaud."
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Barbara Cook