Tony-nominated composer Andrew Lippa will continue his longtime collaboration with the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus (SFGMC) in a one-night-only concert, “Andrew Lippa and Friends.”
Having begun his working relationship with the ensemble in 2011, Lippa is known for groundbreaking works including I Am Harvey Milk (2013), an epic oratorio for men's chorus, orchestra, and soloists that has seen over 50 productions, as well as Unbreakable, a 75-minute musical chronology of the gay experience in America that had its world premiere with SFGMC in 2018.
Lippa is thrilled to bring a cabaret-like extravaganza to the Chan National Queer Arts Center in San Francisco on Jan. 24.
“I’ve done a ton of things with the Chorus and stayed in touch,” said Lippa by phone from his home in New York. “Chris Verdugo, the outgoing [CEO], emailed me a few months ago and suggested we put together a show. We thought it would be a fun evening, and I started putting together my thoughts.”
And does Lippa ever have thoughts! Having penned the music and lyrics for multiple Broadway shows — Tony-nominated The Addams Family, Drama Desk Award-winning The Wild Party, and Big Fish — the composer explained that he’s been working on no less than seven original full-length projects, including a new movie musical, A Totally Awesome ’80s Christmas Musical, that will be made later this year.
“I’ve been in this incredibly fertile period of creation, so I have all these new songs that I’m dying to share,” gushed Lippa. “I thought this will be a good opportunity… this particular audience who comes to see the Chorus, and the people who support my work in San Francisco, are really open to new things to listen to.”
A graduate of the University of Michigan, the composer is also an actor, conductor, and singer, and serves as president of the board of The Dramatists Guild Foundation.
Lippa’s works have been sung by such disparate artists as Renée Fleming, Brooke Shields, and Nathan Lane. When asked how he chose his collaborators for the concert, Lippa replied gleefully: “One of them I married! My husband, Tom Regouski, is playing flute, clarinet, and saxophone. [Soloist] Britney Coleman did Unbreakable with us in 2018. In fact, she’s going to do a song from Unbreakable, and she and I are going to sing a song from Big Fish.”
“My friend, Billy Liberatore, who is a frequent music director at TheatreWorks Silicon Valley, which is another Bay Area institution that I have a long history with, is going to be playing piano for a lot of the songs when I’m not playing.”
He acknowledged that his relationship with SFGMC runs deep. “When I started getting to know the chorus, I was 47 years old — I'm 61 now. I had never, up to that point, worked with a gay [musical] organization. And I had never written about my own gay life — or about my experience of other gay lives — to the depth and the degree that I [did] when I wrote I Am Harvey Milk or Unbreakable.
“It was a wonderful opportunity for me to explore my thoughts and feelings as a gay man,” he continued, “so [SFGMC] gave me a real outlet. In a certain sense, one could say I was given a new chapter, a new way to be creative that I hadn't expressed in the first 25 years of my career.”
As for Lippa’s style, his songs often blend humor and heart with counterpoint.
“There are only a few professional choruses in the country, like the Metropolitan Opera Chorus. But there’s a level of musicianship that San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus can reach. My music’s not easy, and I try to write things that are challenging but also reachable by the audience.
“The thing I’m primarily interested in is how music and lyrics conspire to tell stories,” Lippa added. “My job is to help people feel something: I’m in the feelings business.”