Audra McDonald and Laura Benanti Plan Concerts With Cincinnati Pops | Playbill

Cabaret & Concert News Audra McDonald and Laura Benanti Plan Concerts With Cincinnati Pops The Broadway stars will help the group relight the renovated Music Hall.
Audra McDonald and Laura Benanti

Tony Award-winning stars Audra McDonald and Laura Benanti are among artists scheduled to perform with the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra during its 2017–18 season at the refurbished Music Hall in Cincinnati, Ohio.

The Pops returns to the Music Hall after a season at the Taft Theatre while the Music Hall was being renovated.

Benanti, who was recently featured on Broadway in She Loves Me and won a Tony as Gypsy Rose Lee in the 2008 revival of Gypsy, will be the featured guest soloist at the December 8–10 Holiday Pops concerts, which also feature Denzal Sinclaire. In the short run, Benanti is scheduled to appear May 5 and 6 at Feinstein’s/54 Below in New York with her solo show, The Story Goes On.

Six-time Tony winner Audra McDonald, who starred in Broadway’s Shuffle Along last season, will topline An Evening with Audra McDonald February 25, 2018. McDonald, who plays Madame de Garderobe in the live-action remake of the Disney musical Beauty and the Beast, premiering March 17, is in the midst of a concert tour that will take her to Jacksonville, Florida March 12 and to Chicago on March 25. She is scheduled to recreate her Tony-winning performance in Lady Day at the Emerson Bar & Grill in London June 17.

Playlists for the two Cincinnati concerts have not yet been finalized. You can order tickets here.

Here is the balance of the 2017–18 Cincinnati Pops subscription season:

* The Music of John Williams: Star Wars and Beyond (October 13–15), featuring a world premiere of unpublished work by Williams.
* American Originals: Vol. 2 featuring Rhiannon Giddens, Steep Canyon Rangers, and Pokey LaFarge (November 10–12)
* A Night of Jazz with Gregory Porter (November 19)
* “1812 Overture” and More (January 20–21, 2018)
* Cirque de la Symphonie (March 9–11, 2018)
* Grace Potter (April 8, 2018)
* West Side Story: film with orchestra (April 27–29, 2018)

Conductor John Morris Russell said, “This building, our Music Hall, has nurtured some of the most significant musical performances in our nation’s history, and as we re-open Cincinnati’s musical treasure with the Pops, we pop the cork on a new era of musical splendor with works by America’s greatest cinematic composer: John Williams. It’s hard to put into words the thrilling anticipation, honor and sheer delight we are all feeling about filling this grand space with the brilliant virtuosity of the Pops during these extraordinarily special concerts. There is no better way to show off the new acoustical resplendence of our home than with the some of the most dazzling and ardently emotive film scores ever created.”

LOVE MUSICALS? CHECK OUT PLAYBILL STORE FOR MERCHANDISE!

 
Recommended Reading:
 X

Blocking belongs
on the stage,
not on websites.

Our website is made possible by
displaying online advertisements to our visitors.

Please consider supporting us by
whitelisting playbill.com with your ad blocker.
Thank you!