Album Review: Songs for a New World (1996 Original Cast)

 

“I’ll give you hope to bring out all the life inside you ”

Haven’t got a huge amount more to say about Jason Robert Brown’s Songs for a New World as the recent St James’ Theatre production is still looming fresh in the mind. This recording from the original production 20 years ago is well-accomplished though and certainly has more of that authentic New York feel to it that characterises so much of his early work.

Brooks Ashmanskas, Andréa Burns, Jessica Molaskey and Ty Taylor are the awesome foursome here – Molaskey the real stand-out as her character gets the lion’s share of the vividly memorable songs – the witty Surabaya-Santa, the almost slapstick comedy of Just One Step and the elegiac beauty of Stars and the Moon, probably the show’s best known break-out hit.

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