Raissa Katona Bennett is an amazing singer and Broadway veteran (a Phantom diva), and she also happens to know sign language. So when she saw me signing with Kevin Massey at John Znidarsic's Songbook Series at Lincoln center last December (where we were both performing for the holiday concert), she immediately signed "hi."
She then invited me to the Algonquin Salon -- a very fun gathering of composers, singers, and music lovers at the Algonquin hotel -- and we premiered my new song IN THE MIDDLE. Jennifer Wren saw me there and that lead to my BIG NIGHT OUT at Dillon's last month, with Raissa performing of course. During rehearsals, I showed Raissa some other songs that I thought might be good for her and she said one of them, CHILDREN OF THE WORLD, would be perfect for her benefit for children with AIDS. So I rewrote it for her, and now we're doing it at the Laurie Beechman Theatre at the Westbank Cafe, April 13th, at 9:30 pm!
Just goes to show: 1) it's good to get out of the house, and 2) you never know who you'll meet while signing...
Please join me on April 13th to support such a worthy cause.