A Sondheim Celebration | The Philly Pops
 

A Sondheim Celebration

David Charles Abell, Conductor

Verizon Hall, Kimmel Center for Performing Arts

300 South Broad Street
Philadelphia, PA 19102
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Apr 21-23, 2023
See All Dates & Times
Fri, Apr 21, 2023
8 PM
8 PM
Sat, Apr 22, 2023
3 PM
3 PM
Sun, Apr 23, 2023
3 PM
3 PM
Featuring

Liz Callaway, vocalist
Damian Humbley, vocalist

Stephen Sondheim famously began his career as lyricist for West Side Story, in collaboration with Leonard Bernstein and Jerome Robbins. He went on to compose the incomparable music of A Little Night Music, Sunday in the Park with George, Into the Woods, Follies, Company, and Sweeney Todd.  

David Charles Abell, who premiered a new Sweeney Todd in Zurich in 2019, brings the best of Sondheim in a celebration of the great man’s career. The program features student soloists from the School District of Philadelphia’s All City Choir.  

Guest Artists

Liz Callaway, vocalist

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Tony nominee and Emmy winner Liz Callaway made her Broadway debut in Stephen Sondheim’s Merrily We Roll Along. She has gone on to star in Baby, Miss Saigon, The Look of Love, The Three Musketeers, and for 5 years appeared as Grizabella in Cats.  Off-Broadway credits include The Spitfire Grill (Drama Desk nomination), Marry Me a Little and Brownstone.  She also appeared in A Stephen Sondheim Evening, the legendary Follies in Concert at Lincoln Center, and Inside the Actor’s Studio: Stephen Sondheim. Regional and international credits include the one-person play Every Brilliant Thing, Dot in Sunday in the Park with George, Eva Peron in Evita, Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard, and the European premiere of Sondheim on Sondheim at London’s Royal Festival Hall.

Liz sang the Academy Award-nominated song “Journey to the Past” in the animated feature Anastasia. Other film work includes Jasmine in the two Aladdin sequels, The Swan Princess, Beauty and the Beast, and The Rewrite with The Hugh Grant.

Her extensive concert and symphony career has included appearances in London, Paris, Iceland, Vietnam, Australia, China and nearly every major city in the U.S. She performs regularly with her sister Ann Hampton Callaway, as well as composer Stephen Schwartz, and has had the great pleasure of singing with Jimmy Webb, Paul Williams and the legendary Johnny Mathis.

Liz has seven solo recordings including her newest CD, Comfort and Joy—An Acoustic Christmas. www.lizcallaway.com

Damian Humbley, vocalist

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Damian studied Theatre at the West Australian Academy of Performing Arts. Theatre includes: Local Hero (Edinburgh Lyceum Theatre), Merrily We Roll Along (Huntington Theatre Company, USA & Harold Pinter Theatre), Life of The Party (Bay Theatre Award - TheatreWorks SV, Menier Chocolate Factory) Lend Me A Tenor (Gielgud Theatre, London), The Woman In White (Palace Theatre London), Fiddler on the Roof (Savoy Theatre, London), The Last 5 Years, Spamilton (Menier Chocolate Factory), Forbidden Broadway (Vaudeville Theatre) Dicken's Abridged (Arts Theatre), Putting It Together, Songs For a New World (St James Theatre), Hedda Gabler (Salisbury Playhouse), Company (Sheffield Crucible), Little Shop Of Horrors (UK Tour).

David Charles Abell, Music Director & Principal Conductor

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Born in North Carolina, Music Director & Principal Conductor David Charles Abell grew up in the Mt. Airy neighborhood of Philadelphia, attending Germantown Friends School through the sixth grade. A gifted musician from a young age, his study of trumpet, viola, piano, and composition eventually led to a concentration on conducting. He attended Yale University, the Juilliard School, and the Conservatoire Américain in France, where he studied under Nadia Boulanger. At age 13, David met Leonard Bernstein while singing in the world premiere of Bernstein’s Mass in Washington, D.C. Ten years later, David assisted his teacher John Mauceri in the tenth anniversary production of Mass, leading to a close association with Bernstein—as both a conducting student and as an editor of Bernstein’s music.   

David made his debut with The Philly POPS in 2013’s Christmas Spectacular, returning again in 2014 and 2015. He has since conducted Blockbuster Broadway in 2017, Lenny’s Revolution in 2018, and will lead 2019’s A Philly POPS Christmas and 2020’s Hammerstein: The Song Is You! In addition to his work with The Philly POPS, David conducts concerts, opera, and theatre performances around the world. He has performed with such distinguished artists as Dame Judi Dench ,Dame Emma Thompson, Heather Headley, Idina Menzel, Petula Clark, Andrea Bocelli, Josh Groban, and Matthew Morrison. He has conducted many prominent orchestras, including the London Symphony, Royal Philharmonic, Vienna Symphony, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Atlanta and Cincinnati Symphonies, and Boston Pops.

David is widely known to TV audiences for the 10thand 25th anniversary Les Misérables concerts, both of which have become PBS fund-raising perennials. In the UK, he has performed many times on television, most notably as conductor of the immensely successful Sondheim 80th birthday Prom and as the conductor for four years of the Olivier Awards, the UK’s equivalent to the Tony Awards. Recently, he made his Zurich Opera debut with Sweeney Todd, starring Sir Bryn Terfel.

David currently lives in London.