Thursday, June 10, 2010

Jeannette d'Armand & Seattle Storm game


By now you have probably seen Jeannette d'Armand on our stage either in one of our Spotlight Nights, one of our productions, at our gala, or as one of The Daffodils, our popular girl trio, with fellow singers Candice Donehoo and Billie Wildrick accompanied by Albert Evans on piano.


Jeannette will be singing the National Anthem at Friday, June 11th's Seattle Storm basketball game! 5th Avenue fans can save big on tickets to Friday's game by clicking here and entering promotion code anthem. Get tickets for $15 - $25 (regularly $19 -$55) by selecting June 11's game, entering promo code, creating an account and then selecting your tickets. (Note: June 11 is currently the only upcoming game that we have scheduled a 5th Avenue Theatre performer to sing the anthem).

Jeannette recently released her debut CD "Stage Road." While she has been a Seattle resident for nearly 20 years, Jeannette still keeps her connections to the New York scene and recorded "Stage Road" in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood. Her two producers were Laurel Massé, founding soprano of Manhattan Transfer, and Hubert "Tex" Arnold who did the arrangements and played for Margaret Whiting for 20 years and has also arranged for Rosemary Clooney and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra. Here's what Jeannette had to say about producing her first CD:

"One of the most challenging aspects of making my first CD was narrowing down the material. There is such a plethora of phenomenal music in the world and I love to sing so much of it. I went through just about every song I've ever known sung by singers such as Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan to Joni Mitchell, James Taylor, Paul Simon and a zillion more, including a trip to the Library of Congress in D.C. to research Peggy Lee's lesser-known compositions. The challenge was how to release a cohesive album that one could listen to without feeling they just changed the station on the radio six times. This is where working with Laurel Massé and Tex Arnold came in. Using primarily one arranger allowed me to bring the songs together and produce them in such a way that my varied choice in music could live together on one album."

The title of the album has a bit of a story behind it. Jeannette is not only the daughter of two classical singers but the granddaughter of Jeanne Merrill, who starred on Broadway in the 1940s, sang with the New City Opera Company and sang for a weekly radio show during World War II. Aptly enough, the street Jeannette was raised on in her youth was called "Stage Road".

"Stage Road" can be found on cdbaby.com, iTunes and amazon.com.

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