August 24, 2023
Pasadena, CA – Principal POPS Conductor Michael Feinstein and the Pasadena POPS close the summer season with Hollywood Blockbusters on Saturday, September 9 at the Los Angeles County Arboretum. Feinstein has curated a celebration of songs that made Hollywood a hit parade with music by beloved film composers from Henry Mancini to John Williams. Highlights include music from 42nd Street, To Kill a Mockingbird, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Pink Panther, E.T. and so much more.
Feinstein will welcome a star-studded lineup to sing the hits of Hollywood, with two-time Tony Award® winner, Broadway and TV legend Christine Ebersole returning to the POPS stage. Best known for her acclaimed roles in Grey Gardens and 42nd Street, Ebersole brings her formidable talent to sing Hollywood’s biggest hits. The multi-talented, Grammy®-nominated Cheyenne Jackson also returns to the POPS to show off his staggering vocal range. Most recently seen on The Masked Singer, Fox’s Call Me Kat, and as Hades in Disney’s Descendants 3, Cheyenne has also starred in the critically-acclaimed HBO biopic of Liberace, Behind the Candelabra, and appeared in Glee and 30 Rock among others.
All concerts are held at the Los Angeles County Arboretum and Botanic Gardens. Grounds
open for picnicking and dining at 5:30pm and performances begin at 7:30pm. Don’t miss the best outdoor dinner party in town with spacious circular table seating with fine linens, or lawn seating for those who want to bring a blanket – each option carries on the tradition of picnic-dining with your family and friends to the backdrop of Michael Feinstein and the San Gabriel Valley’s premier orchestra! Among many venue amenities, concert goers can enjoy pre-ordered gourmet box dinners for onsite pickup just steps from their table or a variety of food truck options.
The Arboretum is located at 301 North Baldwin Ave., Arcadia, CA. Subscribers may purchase pre-paid onsite parking at the Arboretum, and all concertgoers can purchase guaranteed and convenient parking at Santa Anita Park, with non-stop shuttle service to the Arboretum’s main entrance.
Single tickets starting at $30. Single tickets are on sale now are available by calling the box office at (626) 793-7172, online at pasadenasymphony-pops.org or at the Arboretum on concert days.
IF YOU GO:
- What: The Pasadena POPS presents Hollywood Blockbusters
Michael Feinstein, Principal Pops Conductor
Christine Ebersole, soloist
Cheyenne Jackon, soloist - When: Saturday, September 9, 2023. Concert starts at 7:30pm. Gates open at 5:30pm.
- Where: The LA County Arboretum | 301 N Baldwin Ave., Arcadia, CA 91007
- Cost: Tickets start at $30.00
- Dining: Gates open at 5:30pm for picnicking. Guests are welcome to bring their own food and drink, pre-order boxed meals, or purchase from onsite food and beverage vendors.
- Parking: Subscribers have the opportunity to purchase onsite Arboretum parking. Single ticket holders may purchase guaranteed and convenient parking at Santa Anita Park, located just across Baldwin Ave., with non-stop shuttle service to the Arboretum’s main entrance for $15. Available for pre-purchase or cash only on-site.
Michael Feinstein
Principal Pops Conductor
In addition to his recognition as one of the leading musical entertainers and piano virtuosi of recent decades, Michael Feinstein’s work as an educator, archivist, interpreter, and Ambassador of the Great American Songbook have established the popular and honored musician as a pre-eminent force in contemporary music. His dazzling career as a top-selling and critically acclaimed recording artist and a star performer on Broadway, and the world’s great concert stages has earned him five GRAMMY® Award nominations, two Emmy nominations of his PBS-TV specials and acclaim for is NPR series. His live concerts have spanned the globe including such iconic venues such as The White House, Buckingham Palace, Hollywood Bowl, Carnegie Hall, and the Sydney Opera House.
In 2022, Feinstein released to rave reviews, Gershwin Country, an album of standards in duet with some of the biggest names in Country Music from Dolly Parton and Alison Krauss to Brad Paisley and Amy Grant.
In 2007, as an extension of his work as a legendary performer and passionate guardian of his nation’s greatest musical traditions, Mr. Feinstein founded the Great American Songbook Foundation. The Foundation works to preserve and elevate America’s rich musical legacy by curating physical artifacts of its creators and performers; offering programs for the public and research opportunities for scholars, historians, and performers; and providing educational opportunities for student musicians, including the annual high school Songbook Academy®. For over a decade, Michael served as a Founding Member on the Library of Congress’ National Recording Preservation Board; an organization dedicated to ensuring the survival, conservation and increased public availability of America’s sound recording heritage.
Feinstein earned his fifth Grammy Award nomination in 2009 for The Sinatra Project, his CD celebrating the music of “Ol’ Blue Eyes.” The Sinatra Project, Volume II: The Good Life was released in 2011. He released the CDs The Power Of Two – collaborating with Glee and 30 Rock star Cheyenne Jackson – and Cheek To Cheek, recorded with Broadway legend Barbara Cook. For Feinstein’s CD We Dreamed These Days, he co-wrote the title song with Dr. Maya Angelou.
His Emmy Award-nominated TV special Michael Feinstein – The Sinatra Legacy, which was taped live at the Palladium in Carmel, IN, aired across the country in 2011. The PBS series Michael Feinstein’s American Songbook, the recipient of the ASCAP Deems-Taylor Television Broadcast Award, was broadcast for three seasons and is available on DVD. His most recent primetime PBS-TV Special, New Year’s Eve at The Rainbow Room – written and directed by Desperate Housewives creator Marc Cherry – aired in 2014. For his nationally syndicated public radio program Song Travels, Michael interviewed and performed alongside of music luminaries such as Bette Midler, Neil Sedaka, Liza Minnelli, Rickie Lee Jones, David Hyde Pierce and more.
Feinstein was named Principal POPS Conductor for the Pasadena Symphony in 2012 and made his conducting debut in June 2013 to celebrated critical acclaim. Under Feinstein’s leadership, the Pasadena Pops has quickly become a premier orchestral presenter of the Great American Songbook with definitive performances of rare orchestrations and classic arrangements. He launched an additional POPS series at the Kravis Center for the Performing Arts in Palm Beach, Florida in 2014.
Michael’s book The Gershwins and Me – the Los Angeles Times best-seller from Simon & Schuster – features a new CD of Gershwin standards performed with Cyrus Chestnut at the piano.
Feinstein serves as Artistic Director of the Center for the Performing Arts, a $170 million, three-theatre venue in Carmel, Indiana, which opened in January 2011. The theater is home to diverse live programming and a museum for his rare memorabilia and manuscripts. Since 1999, he has served as Artistic Director for Carnegie Hall’s Standard Time with Michael Feinstein in conjunction with ASCAP. In 2010, he became the director of the Jazz and Popular Song Series at New York’s Jazz at Lincoln Center.
Feinstein’s at the Nikko, Michael’s nightclub at San Francisco’s Nikko Hotel, has presented the top talents of pop and jazz since 2013. He debuted at Feinstein’s/54 Below, his new club in New York, late in 2015. His first venue in New York, Feinstein’s at the Regency, featured major entertainers such as Rosemary Clooney, Glen Campbell, Barbara Cook, Diahann Carroll, Jane Krakowski, Lea Michele, Cyndi Lauper, Jason Mraz, and Alan Cumming from 1999 to 2012. Most recently, Feinstein opened his first Los Angeles location, Feinstein’s at Vitello’s in June of 2019.
He has designed a new piano for Steinway called “The First Ladies,” inspired by the White House piano and signed by several former First Ladies. It was first played to commemorate the Ronald Regan centennial on February 6, 2011.
In 2013, Michael released Change Of Heart: The Songs of Andre Previn in collaboration with four time Oscar and eleven time Grammy Award-winning composer-conductor-pianist Andre Previn. The album celebrates Previn’s pop songs and motion picture classics. Earlier album highlights include Hopeless Romantics, a songbook of classics by Michael’s late friend Harry Warren, recording with legendary jazz pianist George Shearing. His album with songwriting icon Jimmy Webb, Only One Life – The Songs of Jimmy Webb, was named one of “10 Best CDs of the Year” by USA Today.
Feinstein received his fourth Grammy nomination for Michael Feinstein with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, his first recording with a symphony orchestra. The year before, Rhino/Elektra Music released The Michael Feinstein Anthology, a two-disc compilation spanning 1987 to 1996 and featuring old favorites and previously unreleased tracks.
Michael was born and raised in Columbus, Ohio, where he started playing piano by ear as a 5-year-old. After graduating from high school, he moved to Los Angeles when he was 20. The widow of legendary concert pianist-actor Oscar Levant introduced him to Ira Gershwin in July 1977. Feinstein became Gershwin’s assistant for six years, which earned him access to numerous unpublished Gershwin songs, many of which he has since performed and recorded.
Gershwin’s influence provided a solid base upon which Feinstein evolved into a captivating performer, composer, and arranger of his own original music. He also has become an unparalleled interpreter of music legends such as Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern, Johnny Mercer, Duke Ellington, and Harry Warren. Feinstein has received three honorary doctorates.
Through his live performances, recordings, film and television appearances, and his songwriting (in collaboration with Alan and Marilyn Bergman, Lindy Robbins, Bob Merrill, and Marshall Barer), Feinstein is an all-star force in American music.
For more information, please visit www.MichaelFeinstein.com.
Christine Ebersole
Soloist
“Christine Ebersole contains multitudes…” wrote the New York Times critic Stephen Holden.
For over 30 years, two-time Tony Award®-winning actress Christine Ebersole has captivated audiences on the Broadway stage, television series and specials, films, concert appearances and recordings. Add to this her personal roles of wife, mother, daughter and Spiritual Warrior, and you can fully understand what Mr. Holden means.
Christine was raised in Winnetka, Illinois, an upper-crust suburb on Chicago’s North Shore, the youngest of four children. But Christine says she and her family were never quite in sync with the town’s ideological exclusivity because they belonged not to the local country club but to the A.C.L.U.
At New Trier High School, Christine played violin in the school orchestra and discovered her own voice in a summer drama class. After New Trier, she briefly attended MacMurray College in Jacksonville, IL, before graduating from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York in 1975.
One of her first jobs was as an understudy in the Broadway musical On the Twentieth Century, followed by her turn as Ado Annie in Oklahoma. From there it was on to Ryan’s Hope, One Life to Live, and Saturday Night Live before landing the high-profile role of Guinevere opposite Richard Burton in Camelot.
Christine then shifted her focus from stage to screen and soon headed to Hollywood, appearing in many hit movies, including Amadeus, Tootsie, and Richie Rich. She added an extensive list of television credits as well, including The Cavanaughs, Valerie, and the title role in Rachel Gunn, R.N.
But somewhere south of 40, she realized she was auditioning for roles she used to be offered. When her agent told her she was “over the hill,” Christine packed up her family and four-legged friends and fled back to Broadway, finding her home in Maplewood, New Jersey. Reflecting on that time, Christine says, “I moved from Hollywood to Maplewood. What a difference a leaf makes!”
Everything changed. Her ensuing New York stage performances include her Tony Award®-winning performance as Dorothy Brock in the smash hit revival, 42nd Street, Steel Magnolias, The Best Man, and Dinner at Eight for which she received both Tony® and Outer Critics Circle nominations.
And then came her role of a lifetime. Christine received virtually every Off-Broadway award and her second Tony Award® for Leading Actress in a Musical for her dual role as both Edith Bouvier Beale and “Little Edie” Beale in Grey Gardens. Acclaimed by critics and audiences alike, the show was nominated for ten Tony® Awards, including Best Musical, and its CD was nominated for a Grammy Award®.
Accepting her Tony Award®, Christine said, “I left Hollywood when they told me I was over the hill and now I’m standing here with this most distinguished award for what I consider to be the role of a lifetime. I’m over the hill in the role of a lifetime! I consider this to be very encouraging.”
And encouraging it was, as Christine’s career continued to arc with her starring role in Blithe Spirit on Broadway with Angela Lansbury, her many guest appearances on innumerable popular television series, including her recurring role as Ms. “New Parts” Newberg in the hit cable show Royal Pains and the TBS Sitcom Sullivan and Son. Christine continues to appear in numerous concert halls and Cabaret venues throughout the country, including performances in City Center Encores!, at Carnegie Hall, Tanglewood, the Kennedy Center, Boston Symphony Hall, Feinstein’s and Café Carlyle.
A recording artist as well, Christine has released several CDs, including the recently released Christine Ebersole: Strings Attached.
Christine lives in Maplewood, N.J. with her husband, musician and abstract artist William J. Moloney, their three teenage children, Elijah, Mae Mae, and Aron, two cats, two dogs, and a bird. It’s a home that – like Christine – contains multitudes.
Cheyenne Jackson
Soloist
Grammy®-nominated Cheyenne Jackson is a multi-talented stage, television and film actor, singer, and songwriter.
He was most recently seen in Call Me Kat as well as the Saved By The Bell revival, American Horror Story: Apocalypse, and Disney’s Descendants 3. On the small screen, Cheyenne starred in the critically-acclaimed HBO biopic of Liberace, Behind the Candelabra, and appeared in American Woman, Full Circle, Glee, and 30 Rock.
Cheyenne made his Broadway debut understudying both male leads in the Tony Award®-winning musical Thoroughly Modern Millie. He went on to originate the role of Matthew in the off-Broadway musical Altar Boyz and took on his first leading role in All Shook Up. Additional Broadway credits include Xanadu, Damn Yankees, Finian’s Rainbow, The Performers, and Into the Woods.
Cheyenne made his film debut in 2005 in the short film, Curiosity, and has since appeared in numerous films, including The Green, Love is Strange, Price Check, A Beautiful Now, and the Oscar®-nominated United 93.
Formed in 1928, the Pasadena Symphony and POPS is an ensemble of Hollywood’s most talented, sought after musicians. With extensive credits in the film, television, recording and orchestral industries, the artists of Pasadena Symphony and POPS are the most heard in the world.
The Pasadena Symphony and POPS performs in two of the most extraordinary venues in the United States: Ambassador Auditorium, known as the Carnegie Hall of the West, and the luxuriant Los Angeles Arboretum & Botanic Garden. The multi-platinum-selling, two-time Emmy and five-time Grammy Award-nominated entertainer dubbed “The Ambassador of the Great American Songbook,” Michael Feinstein, leads the POPS as Principal Pops Conductor, succeeding Marvin Hamlisch.
A hallmark of its robust education programs, the Pasadena Symphony Association has served the youth of the region for over five decades through the Pasadena Youth Symphony Orchestras (PYSO) comprised of seven performing ensembles, with over 400 gifted 4th-12th grade students from all over Southern California. The PYSO Symphony has performed at venues across the globe as well as on the television show GLEE.
The PSA provides people from all walks of life with powerful access points to the world of symphonic music.