The premier of SongHall’s newest series, Words About Music took place to a sold out, enthusiastic crowd. SongHall Board Member Maury Yeston, Tony Award winner for the Broadway musicals Nine, Titanic (Best Score and Best Musical) and Grand Hotel (Tony nomination, Olivier Award), kicked the night off with a heartfelt introduction of the featured speakers Steven Sater and Duncan Sheik. They, of course, are the 2007 Tony and 2008 Grammy Award winners for the Broadway musical Spring Awakening. The evening was an intimate event that captured the essence of their process, punctuated by songs sung and played by some of the original cast. The journey was led by Rolling Stone senior editor David Fricke who deftly presented questions that were answered with spirit and honesty. Needless to say, the audience was enthralled. See the story below:
Words About Music Premier Shines
By Jim Bessman
The first installment of the Songwriters Hall of Fame’s Words About Music series, which showcased the 2007 Tony and 2008 Grammy Award-winning musical Spring Awakening’s creative team Steven Sater and Duncan Sheik, fully lived up to the mission of focusing on important songs and songwriters.
The Feb. 20 event at Symphony Space mixed performances of seven Sheik-Sater compositions (sung by Spring Awakening cast members John Gallagher, Jr. and Lauren Pritchard, with instrumental backing from Sheik on acoustic guitar along with a pianist, cellist, bassist and three violinists) with an insightful discussion led by Rolling Stone senior editor David Fricke, following SongHall board member and fellow Broadway luminary Maury Yeston’s glowing introduction.
Affirming the new series’ charge to “stimulate future generations” of songwriters, Yeston saluted Sater and Sheik as a “cutting edge” gift to musical theater. After Gallagher and Pritchard performed “All That’s Known” from Spring Awakening, Fricke pointed to Sater’s lyrics, particularly that song’s “still I know to trust my own true mind”—pertinent indeed in the ensuing discussion of the young collaborators’ work.
Using Spring Awakening as a handy springboard, Sheik spoke of the challenge of injecting a more modern contemporary rock sound into the context of traditional music theater—while Sater movingly related his inspiration from departed “people we lost who are in our hearts and give us reason,” as well as his and his writing partner’s Buddhist practice. In declaring a new love for “creating music in the context of a [theatrical] narrative and other media,” Sheik further expressed wonder in now hearing other people sing his music and thereby giving it “a whole new meaning.”
While Sater had never thought of writing songs until meeting Sheik in 1999, he has clearly adapted to the new medium easily. After he described a collaborative process involving the email exchange of his lyrics with an MP3 of Sheik’s music, the Spring Awakening song pairing “I Don’t Do Sadness/Blue Wind” was performed, prompting Fricke to marvel at the “contrast and flow” of the two parts.
“That’s a lot of architecture!” Fricke added, noting that the rocking “I Don’t Do Sadness” might fit in well on the Warped Tour. This set up the question whether Spring Awakening qualifies as a “rock musical”—as some have called it.
“A lot of rock musicals are just musical theater dressed up as rock—which to me doesn’t work,” answered Sheik, noting that his chief concern is “to write a great song” rather than fit one into a category. “If the music doesn’t work [in a show], I don’t care,” he added.
Sheik got a good laugh when he offered to “take on the mantle” of Robert Goulet after Fricke quoted an obituary for the late Broadway star recalling an early career notice that he was “just the man to help stamp out rock ‘n’ roll.” But Sater turned to his poetic side in defining rock as “the cry of the spirit against that which we can’t say or understand.” In that sense, he hoped he and his partner would “at the end of the day create a body of work that has value.”
“Night Has None,” from Sheik and Sater’s more recent musical The Nightingale, suggested that the team is well on its way. As Sater noted, the story “is about finding our natural heart inspired by song”—exactly “what [Sheik and Sater] do all the time,” concluded Fricke. Together the threesome effectively set a high standard for future Words About Music presentations.