We have the one & only award-winning musical storyteller Ari Axelrod here! His new album A Place for Us: A Celebration of Jewish Broadway will be available on CD and digital formats on Friday, January 17, 2025. Featuring a 13-piece orchestra arranged and conducted by Mike Stapleton, with additional arrangements by Larry Yurman, A Place for Us tells an unforgettable story of a community’s survival built on courage and the yearning for “peace and quiet and open air… somewhere.” Axelrod will celebrate the album release with a special concert at New York’s 54 Below on Saturday, January 18 at 7:00 PM. Tickets are available HERE. The album is produced by Tommy Krasker and Bart Migal, with Ron Thomas serving as executive producer.
The Broadway musical as we know it would not exist without the generations of Jewish songwriters who brought not only their talent but their heritage and perspective to their art. With A Place for Us, Axelrod has gathered a collection of this cherished work through which he finds healing and a sense of home and community, echoing the refuge generations of Jews have sought in the American theater. This new album adapts and expands upon the one-man show he’s performed to raves across the country (called “genuinely one of the finest shows I’ve ever seen” by BroadwayWorld), building on his deep connection to this material and his own Jewish heritage.
Weaving together a century of songs from the likes of Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, Stephen Sondheim, Mary Rodgers, Jason Robert Brown, Adam Guettel and many others – including Cole Porter, a gentile who said the key to hit songs lay in writing “Jewish tunes” – Axelrod creates a stunning tapestry of the Jewish American experience, from immigration and assimilation to activism, faith and family, revealing in exquisite detail how Jewish liturgy and culture were transformed into a popular music beloved by all.
For Tickets: www.54Below.org
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