Playing piano for Gia’s show is one of the great pleasures in my life. Here is a recent review from Cabaret Scenes: Stardust twinkled down at the Gardenia during Gia Mora’s show, and I don’t mean just because she included that Hoagy Carmichael/Mitchell Parish song in the act. Mora is the complete package—great voice, songwriting ability, humor, intelligence, looks and imagination. The unique theme was “The science of love…theoretically speaking.” “Love” was dealt with on two fronts: Mora’s love and passion for science and examining love through science. Subatomic particles, the Big Bang Theory, history of the universe and other scientific matters were cleverly tied to the search for, glories and disappointments of love.
She set the tone right off the bat with her own witty song, written with Brad Brown, called “E=MC2.”The history of the universe was covered with her lyrics and Mozart’s music in “March of the Quarks.” Oh, how I wish my science teachers had presented this material in such an appealing manner.
Her repertoire mixed standards, like “What a Little Moonlight Can Do,” in which she demonstrated her scatting ability, with contemporary social-media songs, such as another Mora original, “Missing David B.-w4m-41” (dealing with missed connections on Craigslist) and Kate Miller-Heidke’s “The Facebook Song.”
This show was a joy from start to finish, and marks the start of that stardust coalescing into a star.