drawing American Songbook
       In a world where we’ve become so accustomed to an abundance of musical options with the touch of a screen, did you ever wonder if the role music plays in different cultures still resonates as powerfully as it once did?
  This thought dawned on me one evening during an American Songbook series at Lincoln Center. Performing was none other than Alan Cumming, a brilliant Scottish actor whom I’ve always adored watching on stage…
  I admit, learning he was to perform in American Songbook, seemed at first a bit surreal and out of character. But once he sang it was clear he was home, and my husband and I were just welcomed guests in his private moment, (well as private as can be with a six piece orchestra, and 300 plus in attendance), eager to hear what was coming next.
   Where else but New York, the melting pot of the world can country meets rock, bluegrass meets jazz, and cabaret still sings on Broadway all intentionally dedicated to the popular American singers and songwriters from the turn of the century to today?
   In this moment finding myself unable to stop the impulse to draw I realized it was there, at Lincoln Center, where song is story, his-tory, her-story, the American story is very well alive.
Alan Cumming said it best “American Songbook is the spirit of New York and to the identity of its people, where one can’t help himself but embrace the differencesâ€.
If I listened close enough there they were, yesterday’s voices rich with lesson.
 So my quest is solved, answer revealed…yes, it is true. Music does still resonate as powerfully as once did, and boy are we lucky.
American Songbook is a music series staged high above the park, where 60th meets Columbus Circle, in the Allen Room at Lincoln Center, a must see experience.
