Carnegie Hall

Music history isn’t a musty relic of the past at Carnegie Hall. It’s being revitalized every season as contemporary artists pay tribute to the stars who inspired them on the venue’s storied stages. That’s what Broadway favorite Jessica Vosk is doing in a solo show that pays tribute to Judy Garland, a blazing talent who delivered a career-defining concert at the Hall in 1961.

“They’re bringing these icons to a whole new generation,” Kathleen Sabogal, director of Carnegie Hall’s Rose Archives and Museum, says of performers like Vosk. “Over the years, we’ve presented lots of tribute concerts focused on the music of an artist or a composer, but usually there are multiple performers,” she adds, noting that this occasion is “definitely going to be special.”

An incandescent entertainer who captivated audiences with her throaty, passionate belt on stage and screen, Judy Garland made her Carnegie Hall debut on April 23, 1961 in an instantly mythic performance that featured many of her signature songs, including “Over the Rainbow,” “The Man That Got Away” and “Zing! Went the Strings of My Heart.” Captured for posterity on a two-record set that has never gone out of print, the live recording won five Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year, making Garland the first woman to earn that accolade.

While Rufus Wainwright famously recreated that momentous evening at the Hall in 2006, Jessica Vosk’s Get Happy: A Judy Garland Centennial Celebration on December 12 aims to evoke the legend’s lifework, not just that landmark night. Acclaimed for playing Elphaba in Wicked on Broadway, Vosk will croon classic Garland numbers accompanied by an orchestra against a backdrop of rarely seen performance footage and interviews with the diva herself.

“While the show is very much tied to her concert at Carnegie Hall, it’s also about the entire history of who she was and what she did,” says Vosk. “We all grew up with The Wizard of Oz. It’s the gateway drug for Judy fans, but it doesn’t encapsulate everything she could and did do. She is often misrepresented solely by her tragic end instead of all she accomplished before, starting at age 3. I find her life to be so inspirational.”

Audiences shouldn’t come expecting an impersonation. “It’s not that kind of campy thing,” she says. “It’s the beautiful story of this powerhouse performer and businesswoman,” with nods to Garland’s singular style. “I’m using a corded microphone like she did. That was a Judy staple. Also, she was very well-known for her vowels and her vocal placement. So I’m trying to bring some of that into the piece.

“Truth be told, her songs are difficult. But they’re also badass to do live. Judy had this thing where she made everybody in the audience feel like she had them in her living room. That’s what I’m trying to do with this particular performance—give the impression of being at a Judy Garland show without taking anything away from the boss on screen behind me ... Innovators like Judy Garland are why we artists feel like we can push boundaries today. Without them, we wouldn’t be here.”

Photography: Vosk by Matthew Murphy; all other images and artifacts courtesy of the Carnegie Hall Rose Archives.