I went to the most beautiful concert on Thursday night with the whole family.

I was called The Song Is You! The Life and Lyrics of Oscar Hammerstein II, and it was a Benefit for the Daily Bread Food Bank, North York Harvest Food Bank, Ontario Association of Food Banks, and the Canadian Association of Food Banks.

I told you to go a couple of weeks ago in this post, so if you missed it, you've only yourself to blame!

It was held at The Hummingbird Centre for the Performing Arts, and was produced by Milton Zysman and GrandNight Productions.

It starred the amazing vocal talents of Elizabeth Beeler, Fred Love, Charlotte Moore, Marcus Nance (who blew my mind with his rendition of "Old Man River"), and Noel Edison and the Mendelssohn Singers.

The arrangements and musical direction were brilliantly done by David Warrack, and the highlight of the evening was the direction and narration by Richard Ouzounian who took what would have been a special evening and made it truly magical.

As the title promised, the evening was all about Oscar Hammerstein II. Richard Ouzounian narrated the Oscar Hammerstein II story, which was incredibly engrossing. I'm assuming Richard wrote it: It was fantastic. I hope he posts it online somewhere.

One thing I found very interesting is that Oscar Hammerstein II had a "barbell" career. At one end, in 1927, he created Show Boat, the first "book" musical and the source of a number of timeless classics. After a few more line drives, he went through a TEN YEAR DROUGHT of flops. That must have been HARD. It wasn't until 1943, paired with Richard Rodgers, that he created Oklahoma!, generally regarded as one of the most influential musicals of the 20th century. Along with Rodgers, he went on to create some of the greatest classics of musical theater, including Carmen Jones, State Fair, Carousel, South Pacific, The King and I, Me and Juliet, Cinderella, Flower Drum Song, and, of course his masterpiece, The Sound of Music, which he didn't live long enough to see succeed.

One particularly stirring moment of the show was Richard's narration of the story of the song "Edelweiss", from The Sound of Music. Apparently, "Edelweiss" was Oscar's final song, before he died of stomach cancer. The combination of the narration and the beauty of the song was haunting, and it had every hair on my body standing, and again now as I write this.

I was particularly intrigued at how an event like this came into being, especially in Toronto. Now, I don't mean to criticize my birthplace, but let's face it: Toronto is a rock 'n' roll town. Our musical theater business, such as it is, primarily caters to tourists. As an aside to any former Torontonian tourists reading this post: Please, please come back. We're sorry about all those mean things we said about you. The people are friendly, the water is safe -- just don't eat the meat...

Well, as is true with most things, it looks like The Song Is You! The Life and Lyrics of Oscar Hammerstein II is the brainchild of one very unique individual named Milton Zysman. Here's a really interesting piece on the genesis of the show from the GrandNight Web site:

A brief note on Milton Zysman, our Producer

"The Song Is You" is the brainchild of Milton Zysman, 68, a Toronto inventor, film producer, author of scholarly papers on catastrophism, manufacturer of mattress handles, and man about town. Visually handicapped since his early 30's, Milton came to the food bank cause by helping a friend, Bob Spencer, former Executive Director of The Ontario Association of Food Banks. Bob needed a plan to raise money for a food-processing kitchen. Milton helped organize a number of dinners, but soon became bored with this shop-worn technique. His brother Simon explains what happened next:

"Milton lives on Mars, actually; he visits Toronto once in a while. While here in the summer of 2003, my brother set himself up as Grand Night Productions, and borrowed $20,000 from the bank. Setting out to raise at least $750,000 for the food banks by touring Canada, he pitched the idea of a gala performance - an original musical revue celebrating the words of Oscar Hammerstein II. It would be presented to capacity audiences paying top dollar in the biggest venues in Canada. Where did he get the idea that it could be done? It's just something Milton thought he'd enjoy attending himself! That's Milton. Where would the development and performance budgets come from? From everywhere! That's Milton again."

He approached the food banks, and The Mendelssohn Singers. They signed on. After sending a draft script to New York in March 2004, Milton found to his delight that The Rodgers and Hammerstein Organization were sympathetic; they have since become his most important backer. Their grand rights licence carries only a token royalty, a benefit worth more than $200,000 to the Canadian tour. With that, a lot of chutzpah, and help from our many other supporters to date, there's going to be a show on May 19th.

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