New York Philharmonic Spring Gala to Feature An Evening With Audra McDonald
(© David Gordon)
The New York Philharmonic’s annual spring gala, set for May 1 at Lincoln Center's David Geffen Hall, will feature An Evening With Audra McDonald, marking McDonald's first reunion with the New York Philharmonic in more than four years and her first major solo concert in New York City since 2015. The Tony-, Grammy-, and Emmy-winning singer and actor will perform songs by Rodgers and Hammerstein, Leonard Bernstein, and Stephen Sondheim, as well as works by other composers — both established and emerging. Andy Einhorn, a Broadway conductor and McDonald’s longtime music director, will conduct the performance.
McDonald made her New York Philharmonic debut in May 2000 as the Beggar Woman in the Philharmonic’s production of Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler’s Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. She has since appeared with the Orchestra 20 times, including in Weill’s The Seven Deadly Sins (2001), Sondheim: The Birthday Concert (2010), and songs by Ellington at Carnegie Hall’s 120th Anniversary Gala (2011). For her most recent Philharmonic appearance in Sweeney Todd in March 2014, she both hosted the Live From Lincoln Center telecast of the performance, which won an Emmy Award, and made a surprise return in the role of the Beggar Woman.
McDonald is a six-time Tony Award winner, earning the accolades for her performances in Carousel, Master Class, Ragtime, A Raisin in the Sun, The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess, and Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill. Her other Broadway credits include The Secret Garden, Marie Christine (Tony nomination), Henry IV, 10 in the Shade (Tony nomination), and Shuffle Along; or, The Making of the Musical Sensation of 1921 and All That Followed.
