Report: Barbara Cook at George Mason

Barbara Cook’s concert at George Mason last night offered a selection of songs loosely based the notion of Sondheim and his collaborators, rounded out with other songs that Cook simply felt like singing. 

As a performer Cook does so much, so right, and without fuss that it’s easy to forget how brilliant she is.  There’s the crystalline diction, the beautiful placement of melodic lines in her voice, and the very clear storytelling.  Most of all, there is a commitment to communication, heart to heart, soul to soul.  And for all the hard-core Cook fans, the signature quirks are still there – the singing entrance, the lack of stool or mike stand, the un-amplified encore, and the comfortable shoes. 

Music direction was provided by Lee Musiker, with Peter Donovan on bass.  Musiker is obviously a superb musician and provided notable support.  However, one doesn’t sense him breathing at the same time as Cook.  On the other hand, perhaps a fan should realize that the seamlessness of the Barbara Cook / Wally Harper team is something that was rare and special.  We should have considered ourselves fortunate to have witnessed it, and not put the pressure on any future music director (or Cook) to replicate it. 

Highlights included a passionate reading of Sondheim’s No One Is Alone, a swinging Hard Hearted Hannah, and an amazingly unembellished This Nearly Was Mine.  The unexpected highlight of the evening was Cook’s reminisces about working in the chorus of an Atlanta show-house as a teenager and seeing Cliff “Ukelele Ike” Edwards; she supplemented this with the charming specialty number, My Dog Loves Your Dog.  At the end of the concert she was joined for a rousing version of Make Our Garden Grow by Richard Novak, a voice professor in the College of Visual and Performing Arts and Adrianna Sgarlata, a graduate student studying voice and Miss Virginia 2006 along with a student chorus.  She sang We’ll Be Together Again for her encore, and of course, at that point I couldn’t wait until the next time I could see her. 

Here’s her set list: 

• Oh What a Beautiful Morning / The Surrey with the Fringe on Top

• It Might As Well Be Spring

• A Wonderful Guy

• I Had Myself a True Love

• Hard Hearted Hannah

• Waitin’ for the Robert E. Lee

• San Francisco

• Another Hundred People / So Many People

• I Got Lost in His Arms

• Nashville Nightengale

• No One is Alone

• I Wish I Could Forget You

• No One But Me

• Lover Come Back to Me

• Long Before I Knew You / I Fall in Love Too Easily

• My Dog Loves Your Dog

• I’m Beginning to See the Light

• This Nearly Was Mine

• No More

• Make Our Garden Grow

• We’ll Be Together Again

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