Timed Out New York has been publishing tasty articles about Rufus’s upcoming Carnegie Hall concert featuring the music from Judy Garland’s 1961 Live at Carnegie Hall concert. He tells us it’s not a drag show, or a female impersonator evening, but Rufus Wainwright’s own performances. That being said, Stephen Oremus is “resurrecting” the the original Mort Lindsay charts for a 40-piece orchestra. It’s funny to hear them talk about the “large” 40 piece orchestra. It is pointed out that the largest orchestra on Broadway is a 22-piece orchestra. Wow! I guess they haven’t thought of checking out how large a regular old orchestra is. Oremus stated:
“We have a few of the orchestration charts and we’re transcribing stuff—we don’t have music to all of the songs, so we have to reconstruct a whole bunch of them. Because Rufus is doing some of the songs in a different key, it affects the voicing of some of the big-band stuff,†Oremus explains. “Basically we have to transpose it all down to the lower key we’re working in, and then do a little tweaking and adapting so it sounds the way it should. Rufus isn’t singing as Judy Garland, he’s doing his own interpretation of the songs. But everything he’s singing over is as exact a replica as we can muster. It’s going to be a very electric night!â€
Countdown to Judy by Elisabeth Vincentelli
Week 1: Rufus Wainwright
Week 2: Stephen Oremus
Week 3: Jared Geller
Week 4: Viktor Horsting and Rolf Snoere
Week 5: Rufus Wainwright
Week 6: Phil Ramone
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