Carnegie Hall

Michael Feinstein’s work as an educator, archivist, interpreter, and ambassador of the Great American Songbook has established him as a preeminent force in contemporary music. He has earned five Grammy and two Emmy nominations. His live concerts have spanned the globe, including such iconic venues as the White House, Buckingham Palace, Hollywood Bowl, Carnegie Hall, and Sydney Opera House. In 2022, Mr. Feinstein will release Gershwin Country, an album of standards in duet with some of the biggest names in country music from Dolly Parton and Alison Krauss to Brad Paisley and Ronnie Milsap.

In 2007, Mr. Feinstein founded the Great American Songbook Foundation, which is dedicated to preserving and elevating America’s rich musical legacy by curating physical artifacts of its creators and performers; offering programs for the public and research opportunities for scholars, historians, and performers; and providing educational opportunities for student musicians, including the annual high school Songbook Academy. He also serves on the Library of Congress’ National Recording Preservation Board, which ensures the survival, conservation, and increased public availability of America’s sound recording heritage.

Mr. Feinstein’s Emmy Award–nominated TV special Michael Feinstein: The Sinatra Legacy aired nationally in 2011. The PBS series Michael Feinstein’s American Songbook was broadcast for three seasons and is available on DVD. His most recent primetime PBS-TV special, New Year’s Eve at the Rainbow Room, aired in 2014. For his nationally syndicated public radio program Song Travels, Mr. Feinstein interviews and performs alongside music luminaries such as Bette Midler, Neil Sedaka, Liza Minnelli, Rickie Lee Jones, and David Hyde Pierce.

Mr. Feinstein was named principal conductor of the Pasadena POPS in 2012. Two years later, he launched an additional pops series at the Kravis Center for the Performing Arts in West Palm Beach, Florida. He is also artistic director of the Palladium at the Center for the Performing Arts in Carmel, Indiana.

Feinstein’s at the Nikko, Mr. Feinstein’s nightclub at San Francisco’s Nikko Hotel, has presented the top music talents since 2013. He debuted at Feinstein’s / 54 Below, his latest club in New York City, in late 2015. In 2019, he launched Feinstein’s at Vitello’s in Los Angeles, followed two years later by Feinstein’s at Hotel Carmichael in Carmel, Indiana.

Michael Feinstein was born and raised in Columbus, Ohio, where he started playing piano by ear at age five. After graduating from high school, he moved to Los Angeles, where the widow of legendary concert pianist-actor Oscar Levant introduced him to Ira Gershwin. Mr. Feinstein became Gershwin’s assistant for six years, which earned him access to numerous unpublished Gershwin songs, many of which he has since performed and recorded.

Gershwin’s influence provided a solid base upon which Mr. Feinstein evolved into a captivating performer, composer, and arranger of his own original music. He has also become an unparalleled interpreter of music by Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern, Johnny Mercer, Duke Ellington, and Harry Warren.

For more information, visit michaelfeinstein.com.

Allyson Briggs is the songbird and bandleader of Fleur Seule, a retro jazz band based in New York City that has taken the nightlife scene by storm. She has created an eclectic cocktail of classic music—from jazz standards and the Great American Songbook to bossa nova and traditional salsa hits—that has had audiences on their feet every Friday night for the last eight years at Tavern on the Green. After performing a tribute to Peggy Lee at Birdland Jazz Club, Ms. Briggs is thrilled to reunite with Michael Feinstein for her debut performance at Carnegie Hall, bringing the sultry and complex music of Peggy Lee to life.

Highly active in the New York City concert circuit, Ciara Renée often plays popular venues like Tavern on the Green, Joe’s Pub, Feinstein’s / 54 Below, Le Poisson Rouge, and Hotel Chantelle. As an actress, she most recently starred as Jenna in the Broadway production of Waitress. Previously, Ms. Renée was seen on Facebook Watch’s Strangers, Netflix’s Master of None, CBS’s The Big Bang Theory, and as Hawkgirl in The CW’s Legends of Tomorrow, Arrow, and The Flash. Her other theater credits include Elsa in Frozen (Broadway), Mariana in The Wrong Man (MCC Theater), the Witch in Big Fish (Broadway), the Leading Player in Pippin (Broadway), and Esmeralda in The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Paper Mill Playhouse). She was also Peggy/Maria in the final lab of Hamilton. With Michael Dallatorre, Ms. Renée co-directed the short documentary Beating the Odds for the Children’s Defense Fund of California. She is also the writer, executive producer, and co-director of the short film Reddy Records.

Molly Brown is an award-winning songwriter, artist, and musician from Toronto, Canada. Before moving to Nashville in 2014, she studied at Boston’s Berklee College of Music. Her original songs—which pair brutally honest, heartfelt lyrics with versed musicianship—have garnered accolades and attention from American Songwriter magazine, the International Songwriting Competition, and the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP). In 2017, Ms. Brown crowd-funded her debut album, The High Road, which was recognized as one of the top-10 releases of the year by Queens of Country. As a multi-instrumentalist and session musician, Ms. Brown lends her talents to famed recording studios and tours with major-label artists, sharing the stage with Tanya Tucker, ZZ Top, Willie Nelson, Carole King, Travis Tritt, Kid Rock, and Kris Kristofferson. She is currently recording new original music, which will offer listeners a rock-kissed and Americana-bent production style, authentic lyrics, and vocal performances that come straight from the heart.