Playbill!
Playbill’s notice re: When We Get There
– Charlie’s Blog –
When We Get There: We’re Getting There
In December, after working together online for nearly two years, I finally met one of my two collaborators on the musical When We Get There, which tells the story of a road trip to the fateful 1965 voting rights march in Selma, Alabama. Richard Lasser of Seattle, who wrote the book for the show along with Robert P. Young of Detroit, joined me in New York to meet with two of our production partners. As I’ve mentioned before, this show will have its first reading in New York, with sponsorship from the Jamaica Center for Arts & Learning in Queens. Richard and I had dinner with the show’s director, Pat Golden, and our producing partner, Leonard Jacobs. After all this time of working remotely, to meet with these partners face to face gave our show a new sense of reality. Since then, we’ve all been hard at work arranging for a venue and starting to cast this reading, which as of now is most likely to happen in April. Stay tuned for more.
Film Noir: Private
My bucket list of film projects just got smaller: I finally had the chance to score a real detective film noir. Private is a black-and-white two-hander starring its director, Steve Blackwood, and one of my favorite actors, Sandy Bainum. During the course of the scoring, Steve referenced the immortal Bernard Herrmann’s work for Alfred Hitchcock. After being completely intimidated, I found it invigorating to try and find an emotional equivalent to Herrmann’s work in several scenes. Private will be out in festivals later this year.
New Stage Musical: True North
Over the spring and summer, I wrote a musical that’s a departure from my earlier stage work. Set in Tennessee, True North a sort of fairy tale, not based on any historical event (though World War II makes a brief appearance). The show is still in a very early stage of development, so I decided to bring some singers into the studio so that I could hear how the songs were working. Thanks to the skill and talent of seven wonderful singers—Alan Naylor, Jennifer Timberlake, Valerie Rigsbee, Abby Middleton, Chris Rios, Chelsea Majors and Rich Follett—I was able to hear ten of the songs performed beautifully. You can hear a few of these songs on my Soundcloud page.
New Work: Rhapsody for Piano and Strings
My primary instrument is piano, but it’s by far the hardest instrument for me to write music for. Maybe that’s because I find constructing piano parts in the Sibelius software to be clunky and awkward. Or maybe it’s because I’m a jazz pianist at heart, and I hate the idea of being strapped into only one way of playing a musical thought. Still, earlier this year I was honored to accept a commission from the National String Symphonia to write a rhapsody for piano, strings, and harp. It was a challenge, but I’m pleased with how it came out—and pleased that I won’t be expected to perform the work myself. NSS conductor David Fanning, who is a gifted pianist, will do the honors when Rhapsody for Piano and Strings is premiered in the fall of 2022. You can hear a synth version of this piece on my website.
New Album: Smart
Working with the singer and actress Katie Ganem is a true pleasure. As the star of 19: The Musical, she brought the prickly character of Alice Paul to full and vibrant life on stage. Next, Katie brought her director’s chops to bear on my one-man show, which resulted in the album Charlie Barnett: All by His Own Self. When Katie called me earlier this year to ask if I would be interested in working with her on an album project, I instantly said yes—and that was even before I knew that her idea was to record an album of songs I wrote. The title cut, “Smart,” was written just for her. You can buy the album on Amazon.