Next weekend, Shenandoah Cabaret presents “A New World of Song” as part of the Virginia Hunger Symposium and all proceeds will benefit the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank.
Last year, Shenandoah Cabaret headlined the Virginia Hunger Symposium.
“So, it’s the culmination of an entire week’s programming at Blue Ridge,” Shenandoah Cabaret member Diana Black said.
Shenandoah Cabaret is in its third year of Black, Jennifer Kirkland, Sandi Belcher, Jeremy Douylliez-Willis and Daniel Burrows performing together. Kemper McCauley plays piano.
According to Black, “A New World of Song” is more ambitious than the group’s previous performances. After three years of working together, they are ready to further challenge each other as individual singers and as a group.
“We have a better idea of how to push each other and what we’re capable of and we can accomplish more in the space of time because there’s this sense of psychological safety,” Black said.
Shenandoah Cabaret often challenges each other to put songs together in a way never done before, especially if the songs have a unifying theme. “And we’ll make something new and we really like that,” Black said. For next weekend’s performances, the group will sing a combination of two songs from two different theater shows, but both are about happiness.
“That’s one of those cabaret things that you don’t do in an ordinary musical,” Black said.
She added that the blending of two songs reflects the blending of two voices in Shenandoah Cabaret.
“I think of it as a nice little metaphor for what we do as collaborators,” she said.
Rehearsal and prep for “A New World of Song” began in April 2024 with two rehearsals in person per week. Black said that 95 percent of the songs are new repertoire. Jack Layne will play bass and Chris Cole will play drums next weekend for the group.
“We felt like it was time to expand what was possible,” Black said of adding bass to the group’s performance.
Other selections will include musical theater and jazz standard “Autumn Leaves,” which Black said she learned was the first jazz piano piece to be No. 1 in 1955.
One song comes from Bo Burnham’s comedy special during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“He’s a very music-focused comedian, so he writes a lot of funny songs and he wrote a song that we’re featuring in our show that does really well as a stand-alone,” Black said. “And that’s what we’re looking for in all of our material is can it stand outside of its original context and tell a complete story.”
Whether a song can stand on its own outside of a theater performance is also a test for good cabaret material. They also look for a variety of musical styles and emotional reactions for audiences to enjoy.
“I like to think of it as this sort of a goody bag that the audience sits down and they’re getting all kinds of flavors in a very short span of time,” Black said.
Black is the group’s dramaturg and she likes to find lesser-known songs for audiences or songs she calls “hidden gems.” She lists detailed notes on the group’s website about songs chosen for performance.
“We think a great deal about how to give an audience a ‘hidden gem,’” Black said.
Throughout the rehearsal process before a performance, members of the group send each other ideas about possible songs to perform as a group or as solos.
Next weekend’s performances will include a special treat of a song set about friendship.
“There are songs about old friends, songs about new friends, songs about friendship that is struggling, friendship that is going strong,” Black said.
Tickets are $20 per person and available online.
Shenandoah Cabaret will perform Friday, October 25 and Saturday, October 26, 2024 at 7:30 p.m. in Blue Ridge Community College’s Fine Arts Center, 1 College Ln. Weyers Cave.
Related stories:
Local cabaret singers raise nearly $13K for high school theater students (augustafreepress.com)
Shenandoah Cabaret to perform at Hunger Symposium, raise food bank donations (augustafreepress.com)
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Rebecca Barnabi
