Waiting for the Angel

WAITING FOR THE ANGEL in Concert
Jo Lawry, Karen Oberlin, Michael Winther
Fred Hersch, Renee Rosnes


Waiting for the Angel is the first concert of songs with words by David Hajdu, the critically lauded author of literary nonfiction books like Lush Life and Positively 4th Street. The music, a quirky hybrid of jazz and pop with a strain of chamber music, was composed by three of the most respected musicians in contemporary jazz and alt-pop: the pianists Fred Hersch and Renee Rosnes, and the singer-songwriter Jill Sobule. Both Fred Hersch and Renee Rosnes will be performing their music in the concert, with Tedd Firth taking over on piano for Sobule's songs.
Three equally respected vocalists from the worlds of jazz and art music will be singing the songs: Jo Lawry, Karen Oberlin, and Michael Winther. The concert follows the release on August 28 of the Waiting for the Angel album on the Miranda Music label, featuring the same group of artists.
As the critic Mark Greif wrote in N+1, "Hajdu could write anything." Waiting for the Angel proves as much, with its strange but human stories of babies raised by leather boys, murderous astronomers, and angels in the attic.
Other musicians in the concert (and album) include Steve Wilson on saxophones, Sean Smith on bass, and Carl Allen on drums.

Jo Lawry
(singer)
A singer of rare virtuosity and versatility, Jo Lawry has performed in every major venue around the world from Carnegie Hall and the Hollywood Bowl to the Royal Albert Hall and the Kremlin. A gifted composer in her own right, Lawry has released two solo albums, including the recent Taking Pictures, a collection of all original material. She performs regularly with Sting, and collaborated with him on songs in his musical drama The Last Ship. Lawry is a featured singer in the Academy Award-winning documentary 20 Feet from Stardom.

Karen Oberlin
(singer)
One of the most respected singers in jazz and cabaret, Karen Oberlin has won the MAC Award, the Bistro Award, and the Nightlife Award, as well as an honorary Doctorate in Music. She has released five acclaimed CD's, including a live album of the music of Frank Loesser, recorded during her three-week engagement at the Oak Room at the Algonquin Hotel. A teenage punk rocker, Oberlin began singing in the Catatonics and Porcelain Forehead. More recently, The New York Times has lauded her a "savior of the American songbook."

Michael Winther
(singer)
Praised by The New York Times as "a singer of unusual refinement," Michael Winther was honored by the Drama Desk and the Drama League for his solo performance in Songs from an Unmade Bed at the New York Theatre Workshop. He starred in My Coma Dreams, the multi-media work by Fred Hersch and Herschel Garfein, and is featured this year in the new staged song cycle Rooms of Light, with music by Hersch and a libretto by the poet Mary Jo Salter. He has performed in concerts at Avery Fisher Hall, Merkin Hall, and the Town Hall, among other venues.

Fred Hersch
(composer)
A six-time Grammy nominee as both a composer and a pianist, Fred Hersch has won virtually every award in the field of jazz, as well as a Guggenheim Fellowship in composition. He has released dozens of albums over more than 30 years, and was the first pianist in the history of the Village Vanguard to play a week-long engagement as a solo pianist. His concert of original settings of poetry from Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass was performed at Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall, and he has collaborated with artists as varied as Renee Fleming, Stan Getz, and Bill Frisell.

Renee Rosnes
(composer)
Canadian-born Renee Rosnes is one of the premier jazz pianists and composers of her generation. She has recorded and toured with a veritable "who's who" of jazz, being the pianist of choice for such legendary musicians as Joe Henderson, Wayne Shorter, Buster Williams, and Bobby Hutcherson. Rosnes has released 14 albums as a pianist and bandleader, four of which have earned Juno Awards, the Canadian equivalent of a Grammy. She has collaborated with a diverse range of artists, from veteran masters such as Jack DeJohnette and the tabla maestro Ustad Zakir Hussain to younger musicians such as Chris Potter and Steve Nelson.

Jill Sobule
(composer)
A pop singer and songwriter of exceptional wit and intelligence, Jill Sobule has released ten albums of original songs, as well as several EP's and singles. She has written three musicals, including an adaptation of Yentl based on the original Isaac Bashevis Singer story. In collaboration with David Hajdu, the lyricist for Waiting for the Angel, Sobule created Dottie's Charms, a song cycle featuring lyrics by a blue-chip roster of American literary figures, including Jonathan Lethem, Sam Lipsyte, Luc Sante, and Vendela Vida, as well as Hajdu.

David Hajdu
(lyricist, co-composer)
Best known as an author of literary nonfiction and criticism, David Hajdu is the author of the multi-award-winning books Lush Life, Positively 4th Street, The Ten-Cent-Plague, and Heroes and Villains, as well as the forthcoming Popped Up, a personal history of American popular music. In recent years, Hajdu has been absorbed with songwriting, working primarily as a lyricist but also, with Jill Sobule, as co-composer. His songs have been recorded on recent albums by Sobule, Karen Oberlin, and Marissa Mulder, and have been performed by Kate McGarry, Stacy Sullivan, Mary Foster Conklin, Hilary Kole, and others.