Broadway’s Carols For a Cure is full of spirited holiday favorites sung by stars from musicals including Mean Girls, Dear Evan Hansen, AND Hamilton.
BY SKIP SHEFFIELD
For twenty years, Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS’ holiday CD, Broadway’s Carols for a Cure, has been a staple of every theatre-lover’s wish list. The beloved series pairs casts from award-winning Broadway musicals with seasonal songs that are both classic and new. This year’s 2-CD compilation, available now for $25 in the Broadway Cares store, features 28 tracks from the companies of Mean Girls, Dear Evan Hansen, Hamilton, My Fair Lady, Pretty Woman, and more!
“This year’s special 20th anniversary edition features eighteen original, newly recorded singles, creatively arranged and performed by the incredibly talented performers and musicians from the 2018 Broadway season, along with ten bonus classics from past year’s albums,” explains producer Lynn Pinto. Once again, she has collaborated with engineer Andros Rodriguez on the album.
After twenty years of creating Broadway’s Carols for a Cure, Pinto has developed a recipe that works. She allows each company a great deal of freedom in choosing the material and the style of their arrangement. She also works with their demanding Broadway schedules. “We record the musicians and singers in layers, utilizing isolation booths for a higher quality recording,” she says. “It gives our holiday album a unique sound from most cast albums and allows us to properly showcase these amazing voices and instrumentalists.”
The first Broadway’s Carols for a Cure album debuted in 1999. Recorded at St. John’s Church in Greenwich Village, it featured carols from the casts of Cabaret, Fosse, and Swing!, as well as from Chicago and Phantom of the Opera who also appear on the special 20th anniversary edition. Fans of today’s Great White Way will be overjoyed to hear original recordings from other current top productions, too, including the cast of Mean Girls singing an all-new, frolicking version of “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” and the cast of Head Over Heels performing an original holiday number, “Head Over Holidays.”
Additionally, the cast of My Fair Lady presents a sweeping rendition of “O Little Town of Bethlehem” and the cast of Pretty Woman caps off the year in grand style with their beautiful adaptation of “Auld Lang Syne.”
Also featured in the special 20th anniversary edition of Broadway’s Carols for a Cure is a stirring tribute of “Over the Rainbow” to Jan Maxwell, the beloved five-time Tony Award nominee who passed away earlier this year.
Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS is a nonprofit organization that helps individuals with serious illnesses including AIDS receive the health care and support they need. In addition, they provide financial support in the form of grants to AIDS and family service organizations throughout the country.
2018 Broadway’s Carols for a Cure Volume 20 exclusively benefits Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS. Volumes 1 through 20 can be purchased in the web store at BroadwayCares.org.
