Music of the Night: The Concert Tour celebrates Andrew Lloyd Webber's 75th birthday
Sound the Alarm: Music/Theatre’s show features a professional cast singing hits from productions like Phantom of the Opera and Jesus Christ Superstar
Amy Gartner in Sound the Alarm: Music/Theatre’s Music of the Night.
Sound the Alarm: Music/Theatre presents Music of the Night: The Concert Tour April 29 at 7:30 pm at Michael J. Fox Theatre in Burnaby; April 30 at 7:30 pm at Bell Performing Arts Centre in Surrey; May 5 at 7:30 pm at Clarke Foundation Theatre in Mission; May 6 at at 7:30 pm at Massey Theatre in New Westminster; May 7 at at 7:30 pm at Kay Meek Centre in West Vancouver; May 8 at 2 pm at The ACT Performing Arts Centre in Maple Ridge. (It then travels to Duncan, Victoria, and Powell River.)
ALAN CORBISHLEY REMEMBERS seeing Phantom of the Opera starring Jeff Hyslop at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre in his late teens. The local multidisciplinary artist remembers thinking: “That’s what I want to do right there,” he tells Stir. “It kind of just changed my life.”
From that moment on, Corbishley set out to pursue the performing arts as a career, entering the world that Andrew Lloyd Webber first propelled him into. After earning his bachelor of music (opera) from UBC and his master’s of music from the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston (voice/opera), the baritone sang professionally in opera and concert throughout North America and Europe. In 2007, he founded Sound the Alarm: Music/Theatre (then BC Living Arts), which focuses on the “theatre of sound and music” and makes a point of travelling throughout the province and beyond to bring live performing arts not only to big, well-known stages but also to those outside of major urban centres.
Now, Sound the Alarm: Music/Theatre is hitting 12 B.C. cities with Music of the Night: The Concert Tour, a musical celebration of Webber’s 75th birthday. Set to live music and performed by a professional cast, the concert features selections from Phantom of the Opera, Evita, Cats, Jesus Christ Superstar, Sunset Blvd, and other smash-hit shows, reminding audiences why Webber owns the title of most successful musical-theatre composer of all time.
Alan Corbishley.
“He is someone who’s beloved by many,” says Corbishley, who is also a creator, producer, and educator on faculty at the Vancouver Academy of Music as a voice teacher and resident stage director. “The music is very satisfying, and the voices are extraordinary on our tour. His music shows off the voices in such beautiful ways.”
All of the singers in Music of the Night (which ran in Kamloops, Salmon Arm, and Kelowna prior to its Metro Vancouver and Vancouver Island dates) have performed internationally. They are Vancouver mezzo Amy Gartner (whose resume includes roles in Do It Anyways, Side By Side By Sondheim, The Who’s Tommy, and Hair, among many others); soprano Melina Schein, a Juilliard grad (Cosi Fan Tutte, Showboat, Candide, Fiddler on the Roof, Guys & Dolls, My Fair Lady, the Magic Flute, to name a few); tenor Nic Kyle, who studied at New Zealand’s National Academy of Singing and Dramatic Art and who has appeared in productions such as Savage, I Love You You're Perfect Now Change, Monty Python's Spamalot, Sweeney Todd, and La Cage aux Folles, as well as numerous solo shows; and baritone Tainui Kuru (H.M.S Pinafore, Grease, Saturday Night Fever, Rat Pack, and more).
The show is a departure for Sound the Alarm: Music/Theatre in the sense that it’s pure entertainment; most of its productions aim to raise awareness of (or sound the alarm for) pressing social issues. Last fall, for example, the company collaborated with Early Music Vancouver to create A Reclamation of Spirit, featuring Cree-Metis baritone Jonathon Adams, with a focus on mental health. This fall, it will co-produce Angel's Bone, the 2017 Pulitzer-prize winning opera by composer Du Yun and Canadian librettist Royce Vavrek that addresses human trafficking and the exploitation of youth. The production’s artistic and community team includes Vancouver’s re:Naissance Opera and Turning Point Ensemble; Loose Tea Music Theatre and Arraymusic out of Toronto; along with social workers, survivors, lawyers, and human-rights activists, among others.
Music of the Night could be described as Sound the Alarm’s Nutcracker, Corbishley says.
“It’s a show that helps us not only fulfill our mandate of bringing it to wide audiences and bringing communities together but also to serve all of B.C. and outside of the Lower Mainland, to make sure we’re making [the arts] accessible.
“It’s also our Nutcracker in that it helps our financial capacities,” he says. “It helps us raise money for the organization for some of our other projects, which are much more pointed in how we’re sounding alarms on various issues. It’s a fun little show. It’s all about bringing people together.”
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