The latest entry into the land of musical crossover is tenor Richard Leech, forsaking the opera stage to take on the American Songbook.
Leech debuts his new show Rick Leech: Life Is a Song Friday in the Cincinnati Netherland Plaza’s exquisite Art Deco Pavilion Ballroom. Backed by a Jazz quintet, Leech offers a program of standards ranging from George Gershwin and Duke Ellington to Richard Rodgers and Stephen Sondheim in musical arrangements by the great Buddy Bregman, who arranged and produced Ella Fitzgerald’s classic Songbook Series on Verve.
The Pavilion Ballroom is an event in itself, at once intimate and worthy of an Astaire/Rogers musical. The acclaimed tenor has been a favorite of Cincinnati Opera audiences and appeared regularly at the Metropolitan Opera. “I can’t think of another place that I would rather begin this musical journey, a journey that has long been a dream of mine,” he says. “How appropriate that I am premiering this show in Cincinnati, for it’s here that I debuted so many roles that have taken me around the world.”
8:30 p.m. Friday at 35 West Fifth St., Downtown.
Go here for ticket and venue details.
