Event Details: Backstage Broadway: An Evening with Joseph Thalken

Join us at a private home for an intimate look at Broadway behind the scenes with a performance by Joseph Thalken. Joseph is in Santa Fe as the accompanist for Patti LuPone, performing at the Lensic Theatre on March 1. He has been involved with dozens of Broadway shows as composer, arranger, orchestrator, conductor, and pianist. There is no better tour guide to take you to a side of Broadway you’ve never seen before. Joseph will be performing selections from shows he has written, titled WAS, HAROLD AND MAUDE (an intimate musical), AND THE CURTAIN RISES and BORROWED DUST, as well as telling backstage stories.

Tickets: $125 per person. $80 is tax deductible
The evening, catered by Walter Burke Catering, includes a heavy hors d’oeuvres and wine.

By reservation only. Reservations limited so act now!

Joseph Thalken is an award-winning composer whose latest musical, And the Curtain Rises, with book by Michael Slade and lyrics by Mark Campbell, is based on a true story about the birth of the first American musical. Thalken gained notoriety in 2003 when he became the first (and, to this date, the only) composer to ever have two musicals showcased the same year at the prestigious National Alliance for Musical Theatre (NAMT) Festival in New York.

The two shows were Harold & Maude, book/lyrics by Fantasticks co-creator Tom Jones (later produced at the Paper Mill Playhouse, Millburn, NJ; TheatreWorks, Palo Alto; Human Race Theatre Company, Dayton; and other theaters from Cleveland to Tokyo); and Was, book/lyrics by Barry Kleinbort, based on Geoff Ryman’s novel (workshopped at Lincoln Center Theatre, NYC; produced at Human Race Theatre Company, Dayton; and Northwestern University’s American Music Theatre Project).

Thalken has also written choral, concert and chamber music works, including Tales of Music and Magic (Skaneateles Festival); and contributed to Mark Campbell’s Songs from an Unmade Bed (New York Theatre Workshop). His music and orchestrations can be heard on albums by Rebecca Luker, Howard McGillin, BJ Ward, opera star Nathan Gunn, and DC?s Sally Martin, among others.

On Broadway, Thalken conducted Victor/Victoria with Julie Andrews and Liza Minnelli, and Gypsy with Patti LuPone. He’s also conducted the Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra; New Jersey Symphony Orchestra; Aachen Stadttheater (Germany); and International Opera Studio (Zurich).

As a pianist and musical director, Mr. Thalken has toured extensively with LuPone, and worked with Bernadette Peters, Barry Manilow, Polly Bergen, Kristin Chenoweth, Marin Mazzie, Jason Danieley and many more. Previous honors include two Gilman & Gonzalez-Falla Foundation Musical Theater Commendations, the Constance Klinsky Award, Meet the Composer award, and a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Mr. Thalken was a winner of a 4 year $100,000 grant from the American Musical Voices Project. He is a proud graduate of Northwestern University.