Photo: Kevin Clifford
The BBC Concert Orchestra, led by Keith Lockhart, presents a showcase of the life and music of lyricist and composer, Stephen Sondheim, at the Southbank Centre on Sunday November 10th. Sondheim: Inside Out is the Orchestra’s final performance as Artistic Partner of the festival entitled The Rest is Noise which has been running throughout the year at the Centre.
Maria Friedman, renowned Sondheim interpreter, is joined by American musical star Kim Criswell, Olivier Award winner Laura Michelle Kelly, Michael Xavier – star of West End musical Love Story – and Turlough Convery, winner of the 2013 Stephen Sondheim Society Student Performer of the Year Competition.
The concert features hits from some of Sondheim’s greatest shows – numbers such as Losing My Mind from Tony-winning Broadway hit Follies, Send in the Clowns from A Little Night Music, Not While I’m Around from Sweeney Todd, Comedy Tonight from A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Not a Day Goes By from Merrily We Roll Along and songs from Sunday in the Park with George – a musical inspired by Seurat’s painting A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte.
Photo: Chris Christodoulou
Stephen Sondheim was an unknown college graduate in the mid-1950s when Leonard Bernstein asked him if he’d like to write the lyrics for a musical on which he, Jerome Robbins and Arthur Laurents were working. Sondheim was apparently not too keen on writing the lyrics for music which someone else had written, however since the composer was Bernstein – with two Broadway hits already under his belt and another on the way – Sondheim agreed, on the basis that he might learn something along the way. The musical was West Side Story, and for Sondheim, the next 50 years …. are history.
Photo: Morley von Sternberg
Sondheim: Inside Out takes place at 3.00 pm on Sunday, November 10th, at the Southbank Centre in London. The concert will be recorded for broadcast on BBC Radio 3 on Friday December 20th, at 2.00 pm.
For further information and tickets, please visit the Southbank Centre website.
BBC Concert Orchestra
Keith Lockhart
Stephen Sondheim
Maria Friedman
Kim Criswell
Laura Michelle Kelly
Michael Xavier
Turlough Convery