On Nov. 7, MendelsSongs: Stories of a Neighborhood, lyrics by Alison Loeb '82, music by Felix Mendelssohn, will premiere at the Hebrew Tabernacle in New York City. MendelsSongs consists of 20 real-life stories Loeb gathered from her German Jewish neighbors in Washington Heights, set to Mendelssohn's piano solos, Songs without Words. "While MendelsSongs is about a disappearing community, the songs' themes – about love, loss, growing old and survival – are universal," says Loeb.
Directed by Shelley Butler, the event features Broadway and Off-Broadway singers Niffer Clarke, Laura Fois, Kristin Maloney, Gordon Stanley, and Steve Sterner. Musical accompaniment is by jazz/classical pianist Naoko Aita. The show is expected to tour in 2011.
Loeb received a Jonathan Larson Performing Arts Foundation grant for excellence in musical theatre. She was an O'Neill Cabaret fellow and has written for Raw Impressions Musical Theatre and BMI's Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop. At Hamilton, she enjoyed comp lit, the women’s a cappella group "Special K," and menu planning for the food co-op.
By Briana Wagner '13
