Michael Feinstein teach new generation of songbook singers

The future Broadway stars of America formed an orderly queue to take a selfie with Laura Osnes. Osnes, who sang her way to stardom and two Tony nominations by starring in Broadway’s “Bonnie and Clyde” and “Cinderella,” was about to catch a plane to Maui, Hawaii, where a friend was getting married, so the students were urged to cut the chatter and keep things moving.

Carmel’s Sydney Sorrell, 18, held her smartphone up high, and the two put on their best “duck face” — the modern lovechild of a pout and a pucker. After taking his selfie with Osnes, Cole Winston, a 16-year-old singer from Hartland, Wisconsin, paraded the photo around like a golden ticket. Indeed, when he asked Osnes, 29, to take him to Hawaii, she thrust out her arm and said, “Of course!”
For teenagers who would rather belt Cole Porter than Taylor Swift, there was no better place to be this week than at Carmel’s Center for the Performing Arts, where Michael Feinstein, the pre-eminent archivist and advocate of the Great American Songbook, helps lead an eight-day competition and camp, culminating in a performance this Saturday.

The 2015 Songbook Academy is bigger than ever this year, with 40 all-stars from nearly 30 states — the largest gathering of young Broadway, Hollywood musical and Tin Pan Alley singers of its kind.
When they’re not busy being starstruck — the students have workshops with Feinstein, Osnes and Grammy-winner Sylvia McNair — participants get schooled in pitch integrity, auditions, dancing and giving “The Joint Is Really Jumpin’ Down At Carnegie Hall,” the raucous show tune made famous by Judy Garland, a personal touch.

The program’s motif is constructive criticism. Feinstein, who dislikes reality television programs like “American Idol” and “America’s Got Talent” (“They’re never about the singers,” he said), put 10 participants up on the Palladium stage for a live critique on Wednesday.

“Push forward,” Osnes told 16-year-old Leah Huber, who sang a “disconnected” rendition of “We’ll Love Again.” “Let the yearning and sadness propel you forward.”

“Let down your arms,” Feinstein added.
The crowd erupted in applause after the two persuaded April Varner, a singer from Toledo, Ohio, to slow down “The Joint Is Really Jumpin’ Down At Carnegie Hall” to half-time and add an “Oh yeah!” at the end. In the span of 15 minutes, Varner’s performance transformed into something looser, edgier. Her onstage persona became unscrewed.

Later that afternoon, Feinstein and Osnes sat backstage and chatted about the idea of lineage, of how these teenagers are singing American music with longevity, unlike so much of what we hear on the radio now.

When he was 20, Feinstein became the Gershwin family’s personal archivist, documenting and rescuing original manuscripts under the employ of Ira Gershwin. As Feinstein’s career blossomed, he kept revisiting the word “magic” to describe the gift the Gershwins gave him. That magic doesn’t live in popular music of the post-Gershwin era.