pops seriesNOV. 3–4

The performance begins at 8 p.m.

SEGERSTROM CENTER FOR THE ARTSRENÉE AND HENRY SEGERSTROM CONCERT HALL

presents

2017-18 POPS SERIES

Official Television Station

P A C I F I C S Y M P H O N Y P R O U D L Y R E C O G N I Z E S I T S O F F I C I A L P A R T N E R S

Pops Radio SponsorOfficial Hotel

LARRY BLANK • CONDUCTORAISHA DE HAAS • VOCALIST | HAROLYN BLACKWELL • VOCALIST | CAPATHIA JENKINS • VOCALIST

The Saturday night concert is generously sponsored by Greenburg Gross LLP.

The Music of Ella FitzgeraldSelections will be announced from the stage.

There will be a 20-minute intermission.

Pacific Symphony • 1

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2 • Pacific Symphony

ABOUT meet the conductor and guest artists

L arry Blank is one of the most prolific and sought-after composers, conductors and orchestrators in the entertainment business today. His work has been presented all over the world, including some of Broadway’s most successful musicals, Carnegie Hall and top

television and film projects.

Blank was the music director/conductor and/or vocal arranger for many shows on Broadway and in Los Angeles including They’re Playing Our Song, Evita, Sugar Babies, La Cage Aux Folles, Phantom of the Opera, Onward Victoria, Copperfield, Colette, A Chorus Line and A Little Night Music. He has been nominated three times for both the Tony Award and the Drama Desk Award for his orchestrations in The Drowsy Chaperone, Irving Berlin’s White Christmas and with Marc Shaiman for Catch Me If You Can. Blank received a Drama Desk nomination for orchestrations for A Christmas Story and Honeymoon in Las Vegas. He contributed to the orchestrations for both the stage and film production of The Producers and to the film of Chicago. Blank is a regular conductor and arranger for BBC Radio 2 Friday Night Is Music Night in the U.K. He is also the music director and orchestrator (along with Mark Cumberland) for the Olivier Awards in London.

Blank has worked with top talents from varied fields of the entertainment world, notably as personal conductor to Michael Crawford. He has also worked with Michael Feinstein, Marvin Hamlisch, Bernadette Peters, Kelsey Grammar, Christine Baranski, Roberta Flack, Pete Fountain, Peabo Bryson, Sally Kellerman, Nancy Dussault, Marc Shaiman, Jerry Herman, Ann-Margaret, Davis Gaines, Bette Midler, George Benson, Placido Domingo, Randy Newman, Trisha Yearwood, Tom Scott, Quincy Jones, Michael Bolton, John Raitt and Diana Rigg.

Blank’s background includes orchestrating and arranging songs for South Park, and he was music supervisor and orchestrator for Jerry Herman’s movie, Mrs. Santa Claus, starring Angela Lansbury and Charles Durning. Some of the films he lent his talent to include The Kid, Kiss the Girls, The American President, Forget Paris, City Slickers II, The Net, That’s Entertainment III, North, I’d Do Anything and Stuart Saves His Family. Blank’s music can be heard on the animated feature films Cats Don’t Dance and All Dogs Go to Heaven, as well as the 101 Dalmatians Christmas Special.

His television work includes orchestrating and composing music for several of the Grammy Award and Academy Award shows as well as numerous television movies and shows.

Blank has guest conducted many of the orchestras throughout the world, including the San Francisco Symphony, the New York Philharmonic, Western Australia Symphony Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Palm Beach Pops, Auckland Symphony, the National Symphony Orchestra, the Boston Pops, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Calgary Symphony, New Orleans Symphony and Toronto Symphony. He has been named resident pops conductor along with regular pops conductor Michael Feinstein for the Pasadena Symphony and Pops.

A isha de Haas is a versatile Broadway and jazz artist with the ability to sing in a variety of vocal styles. Most recently, she toured North America as Medda Larkin in the first national tour of Disney’s Newsies and is featured in the “live-capture” movie that was

released this year. Graduating from Columbia College Chicago, where she was mentored by Sheldon Patinkin, de Haas’ professional career began with Little Shop of Horrors at the Royal George Theater, Four Saints in Three Acts with Chicago Opera Theater and several productions at The Goodman Theater. She returned to New York, where she was cast in her first Broadway show, Bring In Da Noise, Bring In Da Funk, with Savion Glover. This was immediately followed by the Tony Award-winning production of Rent and Caroline, Or Change.

Off-Broadway, de Haas was seen in Nora Ephron’s Love, Loss and What I Wore and Stephen Sondheim’s Road Show. Her television appearances include Shades of Blue, Blue Bloods, Law & Order and The Today Show. Her movie roles include Across the Universe, Rent, The Secret Lives of Dentists and Marci X. De Haas’ voice has been heard on commercial jingles for Chef Boyardee, McDonald’s, The Lottery and Cover Girl, and several recordings including Dreamgirls in Concert, Caroline, Or Change, Chicago (the motion picture), Road Show and PopJazz.

A frequent soloist with symphony orchestras, she played Bloody Mary in a concert version of South Pacific with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra and has performed with such artists as Oleta Adams, Patti Austin, Smokey Robinson and Michael McDonald. Upcoming concert engagements include the Cleveland Orchestra, Colorado Symphony, Youngstown Philharmonic, Ocean City Pops and others. Her own show, Jazzer at Heart, is a tribute to the music she grew up with, the music her parents loved and played—The Great American Songbook. She has also performed at jazz clubs and festivals around the country.

LARRY BLANKCONDUCTOR

AISHA DE HAASVOCALIST

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Pacific Symphony • 3

B rooklyn-born and raised actress Capathia Jenkins most recently starred as Medda in the hit Disney production of Newsies on Broadway. She made her Broadway debut in The Civil War, where she created the role of Harriet Jackson. She then starred in the Off-Broadway

2000 revival of Godspell, where she wowed audiences with her stirring rendition of “Turn Back, O Man,” which can still be heard on the original cast recording. She returned to Broadway in The Look of Love and was critically acclaimed for her performances of the Bacharach/David hits. Jenkins then created the roles of The Washing Machine in Caroline, Or Change and Frieda May in Martin Short: Fame Becomes Me, where she sang “Stop the Show” and brought the house down every night.

In 2007, she went back to Off-Broadway and starred in (mis)Understanding Mammy: The Hattie McDaniel Story, for which she was nominated for a Drama Desk Award. Most recently she was seen in Nora Ephron’s Love, Loss, and What I Wore. An active concert artist, Jenkins has appeared with numerous orchestras around the world including the Cleveland Orchestra, Houston Symphony, Pittsburgh Symphony (with Marvin Hamlisch), National Symphony, Atlanta Symphony, Seattle Symphony, Utah Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, San Antonio Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, Memphis Symphony, Nashville Symphony, Grant Park Orchestra and Chorus, Toledo Symphony, Colorado Symphony, Toronto Symphony, Edmonton Symphony, Calgary Philharmonic, San Diego Symphony and the Hong Kong Philharmonic among many others.

She will return this summer as a soloist with the International Music Festival Český Krumlov in the Czech Republic for the third time. Jenkins had the great honor of performing in the “Broadway Ambassadors to Cuba” concert as part of the Festival De Teatro De La Habana. Jenkins was the guest soloist with Peter Nero and the Philly Pops and has several return engagements with the Cincinnati Pops. She returned to Carnegie Hall with the New York Pops in November 2015, and recently sang in A Tribute to Marvin Hamlisch at the Library of Congress. She has appeared several times at Carnegie Hall as a soloist with the New York Pops.

Her Television credits include 30 Rock, The Practice, Law & Order, Law & Order: SVU and The Sopranos. She can be seen in the 2012 film Musical Chairs, directed by Susan Seidelman. In December 2015, Jenkins was seen in The Wiz in a live performance on NBC. She can be heard on the film soundtracks for Nine, Chicago and Legally Blonde 2.

H arolyn Blackwell has been hailed by audiences and critics alike as a “model of agility, spunk, charm and silvery tone.” Recognized for her expressive and exuberant performances, as well as for her radiant voice, she is making a wide and varied career on

opera, concert and recital stages of the world.

Blackwell’s performing career began on the Broadway stage in Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story. The transition from musical theater to opera occurred shortly afterwards, when she was selected as a finalist for the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions. Since that time, the soprano has performed with many of the major national and international opera companies around the world, including the Metropolitan Opera, where she has appeared in several productions, including La Fille du Régiment, Un Ballo in Maschera and Le Nozze di Figaro, among many others. She also starred in the Broadway revival of Leonard Bernstein’s Candide as Cunegonde. A frequent concert artist, Blackwell’s symphonic engagements include the New York Philharmonic, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the National Symphony Orchestra, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony and numerous others. Upcoming engagements include the Cleveland Orchestra, Colorado Symphony, San Antonio Symphony, Youngstown Symphony and Ocean City Pops. Internationally, she has appeared with the NHK Symphony, Tokyo, the London Symphony Orchestra, the Oslo Philharmonic and L’Orchestre National de Lyon.

Blackwell has appeared in a number of national telecasts including The Met’s Un Ballo in Maschera; The Grammy Awards (The New York Times’ Alan Kozinn called her “Summertime” “melting”); I Hear America Singing on PBS and The 25th Anniversary Salute to the Kennedy Center, as well as the Kennedy Center Honors. To date, her recordings include the role of Clara in the Glyndebourne Festival’s Porgy and Bess (EMI); Cunegonde in the Broadway cast album of Candide (RCA-Victor), The London Symphony Orchestra’s “Ein Deutsches Requiem” (LS0), two solo albums: Strange Hurt (RCA-Victor) and Blackwell Sings Bernstein (RCA-Victor). She is also featured on Selections from Porgy and Bess (Telarc); The Canadian Brass: Noel (RCA-Victor); and Sondheim: A Celebration at Carnegie Hall (RCA-Victor). Blackwell appears courtesy of Encompass Arts, LLC.

ABOUT meet the guest artists

CAPATHIA JENKINSVOCALIST

HAROLYN BLACKWELLVOCALIST

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