Judith Clurman and Essential Voices USA (EVUSA) have released an uplifting and hopeful new Acis EP Recording, “America at Heart,” featuring Broadway’s Randy Graff and Brian Stokes Mitchell and available at https://essentialvoicesusa.hearnow.com/, in honor of the January 20 inauguration of new President Joseph R. Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris.
In Larry Hochman and Sheldon Harnick’s “Reasons to Be Hopeful,” with instrumentalists Tedd Firth on piano, Kathryn Anderson on violin, Angela Pickett on viola, Michael Dahlberg on cello, Steve Lyon on oboe, and Rheagan Noleen on French horn, Mitchell and EVUSA fervently express gratitude for the “America that I call home,” the one free from “heartless tyrants” and blessed with “peace and justice and liberty,” “the land [that] it should be,” and end with a triumphant high note.
In “Give Me Your Tired Your Poor,” Graff and EVUSA, assisted by Lee Musiker and Raman Ramakrishnan, expressively share Emma Lazarus’ inspiring words, set to Irving Berlin’s no-less-inspiring music from his musical “Miss Liberty,” reasserting America’s commitment as a refuge for immigrants, oppressed in their nations of origin.
In the climactic pairing of Samuel A. Ward and Katharine Lee Bates’ anthem “America the Beautiful” with “Wheels of a Dream,” from Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens’ “Ragtime,” in which Mitchell was an original star, he and EVUSA, with the instrumental ensemble heard on the first track, give us a now hushed, then full tilt account of these songs, helping to usher in a new age.