By EMILY PAOLICELLI
Arts Editor
The re-recording of “Songs For a New World,” a song cycle by Jason Robert Brown, was released on Jan. 25, 2019. The show premiered on Broadway in 1995, and the cast recording was released two years after. The new cast consists of Shoshana Bean in place of Jessica Molaskey, Solea Pfeiffer in place of Andrea Burns, Colin Donnell in place of Brooks Ashmanskas, and Mykal Kilgore in place of Ty Taylor. The new recording is more complete, including transitions that the 1997 recording left out.
The opening song clues the listener into what the new cast offers in terms of personal stylistic choices and quirks. We also hear different instruments that were not present in the original recording. It’s obvious after just the first number that the new cast has dedicated their performance to building upon the 1997 recording.
Some cast members take that sentiment to an extreme, however. The new cast is composed of undoubtedly wildly talented individuals who enrich the melodies heard in the 1997 recording with their own personal style. But at times it seems as though the performers are too preoccupied with their impressive vocal acrobatics to maintain the emotional integrity of the pieces. Some numbers that are meant to tell clear stories or evoke strong emotions no longer do so, and there is a clear correlation between the complexity of the vocal performance and the absence of feeling.
Mykal Kilgore’s performances of “On The Deck of a Spanish Sailing Ship, 1492” and “Flying Home” are riddled with intricate vocal runs and riffs that are flawlessly executed, but the frequency and the timing of these runs make them seem unnecessary and distract from the politically charged and historically loaded narrative of the pieces. Taylor’s original performance of these two pieces consistently brought forth tears in me; Kilgore’s performance, while vocally impressive, falls flat.
Colin Donnell seems to be the actor least concerned with impressive vocals, which makes his performances out to be the most entertaining and well-rounded of the soundtrack. His performances in “I’d Give it all for You,” “The River Won’t Flow,” “The World Was Dancing,” and particularly “She Cries” are simple and convincing, with no extravagant vocal tricks.
Individual performances often meet their mark in the new recording; the ensemble, however, frequently falls short. The voices of Bean, Donnell, Kilgore, and Pfeiffer simply don’t blend as well as those of Ashmanskas, Burns, Molaskey, and Taylor. Harmonies are clunky and more dissonant with the new cast, making ensemble-heavy pieces much less enjoyable in the new recording than the original.
The most apparent improvement over the 1997 recording is the clearer recording quality and updated orchestration. The synthesizers and dated instruments have been replaced with more common but more versatile ones that add to the overall listening experience. In “Stars and the Moon,” “She Cries,” and “The River Won’t Flow,” acoustic and electric guitars support the piano, which holds the bulk of the instrumentation. Perhaps the most striking addition is the violin in many of the songs, which add a smooth and classy feel to pieces such as “I’d Give It All for You” and “I’m Not Afraid of Anything,” and an added layer of emotion and excitement in songs like “King of the World,” “Just One Step,” and “Surabaya-Santa.” Overall, with the new instrumentation, the 90’s vibe of the original recording is removed. It is apparent that this recording is one of the 21st century.
Maybe it’s that I’m just not accustomed to the changes rather than I don’t like them, but in a perfect world, the new recording would have used the vocals of the original recording as a comprehensive guide rather than a light suggestion, and the instrumentation would have been improved upon in exactly the way that it was.
