Stories are nice. So are songs. But put them together and you have cabaret, a distinctively intimate artform that collapses the distance — both figuratively and literally — between performer and audience.
On Wednesday, Feb. 12, pianist Todd Decker and soprano Kelly Daniel Decker will present “Songs from Broadway and Hollywood.”
Sponsored by the Danforth University Center Chamber Music Series, the evening will feature songs written for musicals by George and Ira Gershwin, Irving Berlin, Stephen Sondheim, Johnny Mercer, Dorothy Fields, Jerome Kern and Harold Arlen — together with tales of the songwriters at work.
The husband-and-wife team have been performing together for more than 25 years. Kelly Daniel Decker has sung leading roles in operas such as “Die Fledermaus” and “Don Giovanni” and musicals such as “Oklahoma!” and “The Music Man.” She holds a master’s degree in music from the University of Michigan and has a private voice studio in Kirkwood.
Todd Decker, PhD, is an associate professor of music and of film and media studies, both in Arts & Sciences, at Washington University in St. Louis. He is author of three books about U.S. popular music from the 1920s to the present: “Music Makes Me: Fred Astaire and Jazz” (2011), “Show Boat: Performing Race in an American Musical” (2013) and “Who Should Sing ‘Ol’ Man River’?: The Lives of an American Song” (forthcoming in 2014).
DUC Chamber Music Series
Subsequent concerts in the Chamber Music Series will feature Cortango, a tango dance band featuring members of the St. Louis Symphony (March 24) and the Calyx Piano Trio (April 7). Concluding the series will be “An Evening of Bach” featuring harpsichordist Maryse Carlin and friends (May 1.)
All performances begin at 7:30 p.m. in the DUC’s Goldberg Formal Lounge. The Danforth University Center is located at 6475 Forsyth Blvd. For more information, call 314-935-5566 or email daniels@wustl.edu.