Stage performers Debbie Gravitte, Joan Hess, Doug LaBrecque and Kirby Ward will lend their talents to these song and dance concerts, the latest in the DTE Energy Foundation Pops Series, on Thursday, January 17 at 10:45 a.m. and 8 p.m.; Friday, January 18 at 8:30 p.m.; Saturday, January 19 at 8:30 p.m.; and Sunday, January 20 at 3 p.m. in Orchestra Hall.
"There was something magical about the last 15 years of the 19th century. Four giants of the 'American Song Book' were born. Many of the songs that were written by Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, George Gershwin and Jerome Kern have as much to do with defining what is great about America as do our stars and stripes." So says Maestro Constantine Kitsopoulos who will lead the Detroit Symphony Orchestra in "Cole Porter and Friends," a celebration of Porter and his contemporaries who changed the American musical landscape and wrote some of the great standards for stage and screen in the 20th century.
Born in 1891 to a wealthy family in Indiana, Cole Albert Porter began playing the violin when he was only six years old, followed by the piano at eight and his first operetta at 10, with the support and encouragement of his mother. As his career evolved, Porter earned a name for himself as a brilliant lyricist with a gift for witty lyrics and rhymes, sometimes on the bawdy side. He wrote hundreds of songs in his lifetime and is well known for full-length musical comedies for stage and screen including Kiss me Kate, which garnered him Tony Awards for Best Musical and Best Composer and Lyricist and featured hits like "Too Darn Hot," "Another Op'nin,' Another Show" and "Brush Up Your Shakespeare"; Anything Goes, which produced popular tunes including "You're the Top" and "I Get a Kick Out of You"; Red, Hot and Blue featuring the standard "De-lovely"; and Can-Can featuring "C'est Magnifique" and "It's All Right With Me." Porter's music helped define the Golden Age of Hollywood, and he wrote for some of that time's greatest stars of stage and screen such as Gene Kelley, Grace Kelly, Judy Garland, Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra and Ethel Merman.
Constantine Kitsopoulos' musical talents span opera, symphony and musical theater. Kitsopoulos was recently named music director of the Queens Symphony Orchestra and continues as general director of Chatham Opera, which he founded in 2005. He conducted Chatham's debut production, Menotti's Amahl and the Night Visitors. Recently Kitsopoulos made his debut with the Blossom Festival Orchestra, Hartford Symphony, Santa Barbara Symphony and the National Arts Centre Orchestra. He conducted DiCapo Opera Theatre's production of The Merry Widow and the Red Bull Artsehcro, an orchestra consisting of students from the top conservatories and university music programs in the country. He also conducted the cast recording for American Conservatory Theatre's production of Kurt Weill's "Happy End."
Debbie Gravitte's varied career has taken her from the Broadway stage to nightclubs to symphony halls. She won the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical, a Drama Desk Award Nomination and a New York Showstopper Award for Jerome Robbins' Broadway. After making her Broadway debut in the original cast of They're Playing Our Song, she went on to appear in productions including Perfectly Frank, for which she earned a Drama Desk award nomination, as well as Blues in the Night, Chicago and Les Miserables. Gravitte has performed her nightclub act worldwide, has a number of television roles to her credit and has been a guest artist with orchestras around the globe.
Doug LaBrecque thrilled theatre audiences as The Phantom and Raoul in The Phantom of the Opera. LaBrecque starred in the revival of Showboat! and was featured in Oscar Hammerstein's 100th birthday celebration on Broadway at the Gershwin Theatre. He toured nationally with Les Miserables and starred in regional productions of Candide, A Chorus Line and Man of LaMancha. LaBrecque has appeared with some of the world's finest symphony orchestras and is a graduate of the University of Michigan.
Joan Hess most recently played the role of Billie Dawn in Garson Kanin's Born Yesterday. She appeared at Lincoln Center in the lead role in the new Lynn Ahrens/Stephen Flaherty piece, Dessa Rose. Broadway credits include Bridgette in Bells are Ringing, Edie and Hattie in Kiss Me Kate and Patsy in Crazy for You. She starred in the First National Tours of Sunset Boulevard and Crazy for You and also toured with 42nd Street and Beehive. She has also appeared in a number of regional productions, including The 1940s Radio Hour for which she received a Best Actress Nomination.
Kirby Ward has worked in film, television and stage for almost 30 years. Ward's portrayal of Bobby Child in the London production of Crazy for You netted him an Olivier Award nomination and the honor of meeting and performing for the royal family on the Queen Mum's birthday. As an actor, he's run the gamut of song and dance roles from My One and Only and 42nd Street to Singin' in the Rain and No No Nanette. In New York, Ward appeared in the revival of Show Boat!, in the Off-Broadway revival cast of Cocoanuts and in Company as well as in the recent Never Gonna Dance at the Broadhurst. TV credits include Law and Order: Special Victims Unit, General Hospital, The Tonight Show and numerous commercials. Film credits include For the Boys, Pennies from Heaven and S.O.B. -- www.detroitsymphony.com
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