Sheet Music Is Here!

I'm very pleased to announce that sheet music for the songs on my album Out of Context: The Songs of Michael Patrick Walker is now available for purchase!  That's right - it's true!  There is a brand new Store section of my web site where you can buy music for twelve of the thirteen songs (the thirteenth song, I Believe, is already sold by Hal Leonard)!

I've wanted to offer the music for sale for some time but you'd be surprised how long it takes to format and clean up sheet music - especially when you're a bit of a procrastinator like me!

On top of that, the music is also for sale via a wonderful web site - NewMusicalTheatre.com - which sells sheet music from practically all of today's young musical theatre writers!  Check out the mpw section on their site to hear sample clips of the songs, watch videos of Broadway and West End stars performing the songs and to buy the sheet music so you can sing it yourself!

I would love to see and hear all of your performances of any of these songs - it's always exciting to see what different performers bring to a song - so I encourage you to video yourself singing and post to YouTube and let me know - maybe I'll share some of my favorites here!  Happy singing and I hope everybody enjoys!

London Is...

Two weeks ago today, I returned from my trip to London and, in one way or another, I've been thinking about it every day since then.  The concert itself - my London debut at the Hippodrome - was wonderful and I can't say enough good things about Simon Greiff and SimG Productions who put together the entire evening.  Not to mention the five fantastic West End actors who performed with such talent, grace, emotion and humor - or, rather, humour.  I looking forward to working with every one of them again as soon as possible!  Here's to Kelly-Anne Gower, Stuart Matthew Price, Lauren Samuels, Caroline Sheen and Simon Thomas - if you ever have the chance to see any of them perform in anything, do it!  Here's a quick sample - Stuart and Simon singing Different Kind of Man:

The reception for the show - featuring my songs as well as songs written by Georgia Stitt and Scott Evan Davis - was better than I could have hoped for.  After all, despite being performed all over the world, Altar Boyz has never played anywhere in the UK - I'm working on it, I swear! And while Out of Context is sold via Amazon, iTunes and is available from Dress Circle's web site, there is no reason the Brits would know me or any of my music.  And yet, they were nothing but welcoming, interested and supportive of what we were doing - it was a really wonderful feeling and experience!  To paraphrase something Simon Greiff is fond of saying, if the theatre community doesn't support new writing, then we're basically done - and yet, that's too often what happens.  More on that in a minute but, first, the amazing Kelly-Anne Gower who opened the show with All About Me:

Don't get me wrong, I'm fully aware that my brief and first trip to London puts me solidly in the honeymoon phase - I'm sure there are non-supportive people there too!  But it was nice to experience a theatre community that is so much like New York, but also quite different.  And before anybody thinks I'm bashing New York or the New York theatre scene, far from it - there are some of the most supportive, creative, wonderful people here and I count myself lucky to know a whole bunch of them!  So, maybe what I've taken away from my trip is that, if I could combine the best parts of New York and London into one city, I would truly be in theatre geek heaven!  

I'm gonna get to work on that - I'll let you know how it goes!  

Next Time: Some exciting news about sheet music sales and what's going on this fall!

Oklahoma...and London?!

Wait, I have a blog on my web site?  I had NO idea!  But rather than a long rambling post about my lack of blogging stick-to-it-ive-ness, let's just move past the eight month gap and embrace August 2012!

As I type this, I find myself in Oklahoma City, OK.  This isn't a surprise - no teleportation was involved in getting me here and two flights on American Airlines from LaGuardia, no matter how on schedule, can't be called "sudden".  So, yes, I knew I was coming here, but there is an element of surprise when I wake up each morning and realize what state I am.  Adding to that is the reason I'm here - as I often do, I'm here with the lovely and talented Chita Rivera performing her concert show - for an entire week, no less!

I realize I'm straying dangerously close to stereotypes here, but I just didn't expect Oklahoma City to be able to support 6 performances in a very large theatre.  Rodgers' and Hammerstein's work aside, one does not often equate OKC with musical theatre!  But, the Lyric Theatre here has done an entire season of shows that Chita performed in - ranging from Sweet Charity to Call Me Madam and beyond. All culminating with the woman herself for six shows.  We've only done two thus far, but the audiences have been wonderful and, while I'm not sure I could ever enjoy the 108 degree heat they get a great deal of here, I must say that we're having fun and looking forward to the rest of the shows!

I return home to New York City on Sunday and then, only a few days later, I'm off to London!  And this trip is to make my London concert debut as a composer/lyricist - actually, it's the first time I've been to London for any reason, and I'm really looking forward to it!  A wonderful producer named Simon Greiff - who specializes in supporting writers - contacted me a few months back about doing An Evening with the Composers at the newly re-opened Hippodrome in London's West End.  On Sunday August 19th, Myself, Georgia Stitt and Scott Evan Davis will each be playing our own songs which will be sung by an amazing group of Brits - Kelly-Anne Gower, Lauren Samuels, Caroline Sheen, Stuart Matthew Price and Simon Thomas!  Not to mention a mini-choir from the Musical Theatre Academy in London!  It's going to be a great night and a wonderful introduction to London!

They'll be performing songs from Out of Context as well as a few old favorites -

On top of all of that, my album is now available at Dress Circle in the UK!  Although, sadly, the physical shop will be closing soon, their web site will live on and continue to be the place to get musical theatre albums in the UK - and I'm so thrilled that, in addition to carrying the Altar Boyz album and vocal selections, they now carry Out of Context!

I'll be taking my video camera to London and should have some fun footage of my adventures there - and if you're in London, please come see me at the Hippodrome on August 19th!  Get your tickets here!  And I swear I'm going to redouble my efforts to keep you updated on what's going on!  Next time, it's time to talk about a brand new show I wrote with the amazing Rick Elice! Stay tuned!