West End star Meredith Braun will release her second solo album When Love is Gone on Stage Door Records on 10 November.
Taking its title from the Paul Williams’ ballad performed by Braun in the festive favourite movie The Muppet Christmas Carol, the album features a new version of the song performed by Braun for the first time since the film’s soundtrack was released 25 years ago.
Featuring a mixture of musical theatre, singer/songwriter pieces and original material When Love is Gone takes the form of a narrative song cycle.
Written and recorded between November last year and July this year, the album features Braun accompanied on the cello by her 13-year-old music student son Tiger Braun-White.
Commenting on her latest work which comes five years after the release of her debut album, Someone Else’s Story, Braun said: “When Love is Gone encompasses all the elements of music theatre that I love.
“Fifteen years ago I performed a one-woman play with songs at the National Theatre Studio – Cordelia – it was written for me by the award-winning playwright and lyricist Stephen Clark. I have taken this concept of a narrative song cycle into When Love is Gone.
“Primarily, it is the story of an ‘Everywoman’ who is living through a painful and difficult relationship. The narrative is driven by both the excerpts and the lyric, but the music and the arrangements expand and heighten the experience and, I hope, elucidate the issues.”
Songs featured include: Stephen Sondheim’s ‘With So Little to Be Sure Of’, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s ‘There’s Me’ (from the original production of Starlight Express, arr. James McConnel), Barry Manilow’s ‘Sandra’, and Agnetha Fältskog’s solo ABBA song ‘I’m Still Alive’.
New material is represented by two compositions written by Braun (‘Hold Me’ and ‘Everything That’s Me’) and ‘The Rules’, an original song written especially for the album by musical theatre writers Stephen Keeling and Shaun McKenna.
A West End performer since 1990, the New Zealand born actress and singer’s theatre credits include originating the roles of Betty Schaeffer in Sunset Boulevard and Lily in the RSC’s The Secret Garden. Braun has also played the roles of Eponine in Les Misérables and Christine in The Phantom of the Opera.
Angela Thomas
www.stagedoorrecords.com/stage9053.html
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