Countdown to Judy

As we continue to follow the preparation for Rufus Wainwright’s June attempt to re-create Judy Garland’s legendary Carnegie Hall show, we check in with musical director Stephen Oremus. An alum of such hits as Wicked and Avenue Q, he is faced with the daunting task of resurrecting Mort Lindsay’s swinging arrangements with a 35–40 piece orchestra (which is in the process of being assembled). “Some of these arrangements are just amazing,” Oremus says. “The things going on musically were so sophisticated and so absolutely thrilling, and you don’t hear that much anymore. We use the same size orchestra and the same orchestrations. On Broadway you don’t get the opportunity to conduct such a big orchestra with so many strings—Wicked is a huge orchestra for Broadway and it’s 22 pieces.”

Getting there isn’t easy, though. “We have a few of the orchestration charts and we’re transcribing stuff—we don’t have music to all of the songs, so we have to reconstruct a whole bunch of them. Because Rufus is doing some of the songs in a different key, it affects the voicing of some of the big-band stuff,” Oremus explains. “Basically we have to transpose it all down to the lower key we’re working in, and then do a little tweaking and adapting so it sounds the way it should. Rufus isn’t singing as Judy Garland, he’s doing his own interpretation of the songs. But everything he’s singing over is as exact a replica as we can muster. It’s going to be a very electric night!”

Rehearsing with an orchestra of that size is pricey, though, so for the moment, the team is working on a much smaller scale. Oremus explains that “Last week we rehearsed with piano, bass and drums. We’ll have a few more rehearsals with the rhythm combo, and that’s really just about finding the feel and the grooves and the tempi. We don’t have many rehearsals with the orchestra: Two days before the show, the day of, and that’s it. That’s the way it’s done—it isn’t cheap to rehearse a huge orchestra at Carnegie Hall! At that point we’ll have done so much work in advance that rehearsing this material with the orchestra for nine hours before the concert will be sufficient.”—Elisabeth Vincentelli

· Week 1: Rufus Wainwright
· Week 2: Stephen Oremus
· Week 3: Jared Geller
· Week 4: Viktor Horsting and Rolf Snoere
· Week 5: Rufus Wainwright
· Week 6: Phil Ramone
· Week 7: Kate McGarrigle