Sondheim’s birthday to be marked by concert

Sondheim’s birthday to be marked by concert

23 September 2015

DUBLIN jazz singer Stella Bass is marking the 85th birthday of legendary Broadway composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim.

Stella has performed a series of concerts of his most popular songs with a jazz twist, including a full-house performance at the National Concert Hall in Dublin, and now adds eight nationwide dates to her ‘A Little Jazz Night Music’ tour, including Down Arts Centre on October 2.

The shows celebrate the music of the Academy Award-winning composer, who got his first big break in 1957 when hired as lyricist for Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story. Two of his own musicals, Sweeney Todd (2007) and this year’s Into the Woods have been adapted for the big screen, and in this new show Sondheim’s music – including iconic songs such as Send in the Clowns, Losing My Mind, I Feel Pretty and the Oscar-winning Sooner or Later – are adapted beautifully with new jazz arrangements by renowned Irish pianist/arranger, Cian Boylan.

Since the release of her 2014 jazz album, Too Darn Hot, Stella has been firmly established as one of the Ireland’s top jazz singers, shortly celebrating her fifth anniversary as the resident jazz singer in Dublin’s stylish Café en Seine. 

Having spent several years performing in musical theatre, however, she still has a great love for that genre. As so many of the much-loved jazz standards of Gershwin, Porter and Berlin originated in musicals, Stella wanted to explore how Sondheim’s music would respond to a little jazz treatment. The ‘A Little Jazz Night Music’ title is drawn from Sondheim’s show A Little Night Music, in which his iconic Send in the Clowns song features.

The Sunday Independent has described Stella as “a versatile singer who combines maturity with innocence, sophistication with sincerity” and All About Jazz review said: “Bass is a class act...her voice possesses soul, swing and pizzazz”.

Explaining her Sondheim fascination, Stella said: “I was first introduced to his music in my late teens, while listening to the recordings of some of the great Broadway singers and performing in musicals myself. 

“Some of it I loved, but for the most part it didn’t resonate with me in the same way as did the music of Richard Rodgers, Frank Loesser , or indeed the newer composers of the day such as Boublil and Schoenberg and Lloyd Webber.

“I forgot about him for a long time, and fell in love with singing jazz standards and continued regularly working and recording with the best jazz musicians in the country.

However, Sondheim’s magic is in the often ‘grown-up’ themes he writes about, highlighting the intricacies of the human condition, so no wonder that it was only when I had a lot more life experience under my belt, that I could really understand his musicals. And of course, his ability to write tremendously clever lyrics and beautiful melodies helps too.”

The programme for A Little Jazz Night Music includes Sondheim’s best-loved songs, arranged for jazz ensemble, bridging the worlds of musicals and jazz.

The concert on Friday, October 2 starts at 8pm. Book tickets by contacting Down Arts Centre on 028 4461 0747.