The 2010 Ricky Ian Gordon musical Sycamore Trees is finally getting a cast album, via a hybrid of live and studio recordings. The release will hit digital and streaming platforms August 30 via PS Classics, with a limited run physical CD edition following September 20.
The autobiographical musical premiered at Virginia's Signature Theatre in 2010. The upcoming album has been assembled from an archival recording of a live performance from sound designer Matt Rowe and new studio recordings from the original cast to fill in some blanks. Press notes tease a finished product that reflects both the work's live performance and "the precision and expansiveness of a studio mix."
The Broadway favorite-heavy cast includes Farah Alvin, Marc Kudisch, Judy Kuhn, Jessica Molaskey, Matthew Risch, Diane Sutherland, and Tony Yazbeck.
Orchestrations are by Bruce Coughlin, and are conducted by Fred Lassen with Andrew Resnick at the piano. Tommy Krasker and Bart Migal have produced the new album, with Migal handling audio restoration.
The musical, which recounts Gordon's tumultuous upbringing and early adulthood, features a score by Gordon and a book by Gordon and Nina Mankin. Tina Landau (Mother Play) directed the 2010 production. Earlier this year, Gordon released his life story as a memoir, titled Seeing Through: A Chronicle of Sex, Drugs, and Opera.
“Having this original cast recording being born into the world 14 years after its premiere is like getting the best birthday present of all time," says Gordon in a statement. "It was so far away from anything I ever thought possible, this incredible cast, these amazing players. My gratitude for all that has been done to make this happen—to everyone who said yes, to everyone who supported it, to all who worked on it, and, of course, to my lifelong friend [PS Classics co-founder] Tommy Krasker—is infinite, immeasurable.”
"Philip [Chaffin, fellow co-founder] and I were fortunate to see a performance of Sycamore Trees in 2010," adds Krasker. "We wanted to record it then, but it was such a crazy time for us. We were doing live albums with Kate Baldwin and the Callaway Sisters, and we had already committed to recording A Minister’s Wife and Death Takes a Holiday Off-Broadway. We just couldn’t manage it. Over the years, Ricky and I lamented the fact that we’d been unable to produce an original cast album—especially with that amazing group of actors. But this year, when plans for Ricky’s autobiography started to materialize, he asked me to take another listen to the Sycamore Trees live recording and see if anything could be done. Needless to say, audio technology has advanced dramatically in the last 15 years—the last few years, especially. Fifteen years ago, if you had a 'board mix' of a musical—a recording never intended for public consumption—all you could do with it was stamp 'recorded live' on the packaging, and hope the listener excused the noises, the glitches, the cavernous theatre sound, the laughter that covered key lyrics. But now, new technology enabled us to remix and refine it, to take these glorious performances and orchestrations and give them a real studio sheen. I won’t pretend it sounds exactly as it would have if we had recorded in the studio—but for technology this new, I was amazed how close we were able to get. The audio restoration was spearheaded by my co-producer Bart Migal, and as he does on every recording we do together, he made magic. Sycamore Trees is such an important work, I’m glad we finally had the opportunity to release a proper recording of it.”
Gordon's past albums with PS Classics include his opera The Grapes of Wrath, his musicals My Life With Albertine and Dream True, and song cycle Only Heaven.
Visit PSClassics.com.
