Lights Up on Broadway

There is a particular kind of energy that only Broadway music seems capable of creating. Not just excitement, though there is plenty of that here, but immediacy — music written to land emotionally in real time, to sweep an audience into a story before they’ve even had a chance to resist it. Broadway has always understood something fundamental about American music: sophistication means very little if the audience doesn’t feel something.

That idea runs through every corner of Lights Up on Broadway.

The program begins with George Gershwin’s An American in Paris, one of the great portraits of American imagination abroad. Long before Broadway and the concert hall fully embraced one another, Gershwin was already blurring the boundaries between jazz, symphonic writing, popular song, and theater. His music still feels alive because it captures the sound of a world in motion — restless, glamorous, energetic, sophisticated, and unmistakably American.

That spirit continues in Julian Bond’s Rhapsody for a Blue Clarinet, by George!, a playful and virtuosic new work performed by Jennifer Royals. Rather than simply imitating Gershwin, Bond treats his musical language like a living conversation, allowing the clarinet to slip effortlessly between jazz-infused swagger, lyrical warmth, and theatrical sparkle. The result feels less like a historical tribute and more like Gershwin’s musical world suddenly reappearing in the present tense.

From there, the concert expands outward into the larger universe Broadway helped create.

Cabaret moves into darker territory, where glamour and danger begin occupying the same stage. Chicago sharpens that edge even further, turning cynicism, showmanship, and spectacle into one irresistible theatrical machine. South Pacific offers a different kind of power — sweeping, romantic, and deeply human — reminding us how Rodgers and Hammerstein changed what musical theater could say and how directly it could say it. Evita turns Broadway into near-operatic spectacle, overflowing with ambition, drama, and emotional intensity. Even Grease, beneath its nostalgia and irresistible charm, reflects Broadway’s ability to transform ordinary teenage experience into something mythic and larger than life.

Throughout the evening, the music never stays still for very long. That is part of what makes Broadway music uniquely American. It evolves constantly, absorbing jazz, swing, opera, popular song, dance music, and whatever else it encounters along the way.

The concert’s most intimate moments arrive with Jordan Bicasan’s vocal debut in Dream a Little Dream of Me and Ain’t Misbehavin’. These songs remind us that American standards endure because they leave space for personality. No two performers sing them the same way. The phrasing shifts. The timing changes. A lyric suddenly means something new. The music survives because performers continue breathing themselves into it.

And perhaps that is the real story this concert tells.

Broadway music lasts not because it sits safely preserved behind glass, but because each generation finds new life inside it. Gershwin’s rhythms still pulse. Rodgers and Hammerstein still sing with aching sincerity. Kander still struts and bites. Lloyd Webber still reaches for spectacle. The melodies still soar. The emotions still land instantly. The spotlight simply passes from one performer to the next.

By the end of the evening, the concert hall has transformed into something larger than itself — part jazz club, part Broadway stage, part symphonic spectacle. Glamorous, restless, heartfelt, excessive in all the best ways, and fully alive.

Exactly the way American musical theater was always meant to be.