Stephen Sondheim & Wynton Marsalis Team Up For A Bed and a Chair: A New York Love Story at Encores!

Eight-time Tony-winning composer Stephen Sondheim and nine-time Grammy-winning trumpet player and bandleader Wynton Marsalis are joining forces at Encores! The duo will team up for A Bed and a Chair: A New York Love Story, featuring Sondheim songs arranged and performed by Marsalis’ Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra. Directed by John Doyle and conceived by Peter Gethers, Jack Viertel and Doyle, the special event will take place November 13 through 17 at City Center. The annual City Center Gala Benefit is set for November 14, including a post-performance dinner at the Plaza Hotel.

A Bed and a Chair: A New York Love Story celebrates the love of all things New York. The program will feature more than two dozen Sondheim compositions, each piece newly reimagined by the unique musical sensibility of Marsalis. Singers from both jazz and Broadway backgrounds will participate—casting will be announced shortly.

Sondheim is the composer and lyricist of Passion, Assassins, Into the Woods, Sunday in the Park With George, Merrily We Roll Along, Sweeney Todd, Pacific Overtures, The Frogs, A Little Night Music, Follies, Company, Anyone Can Whistle and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. He wrote lyrics for West Side Story, Gypsy, Do I Hear a Waltz? and additional lyrics for Candide.

Marsalis serves as the managing and artistic director at Jazz at Lincoln Center. He has recorded more than 70 jazz and classical recordings. He is the first jazz artist to be awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Music, for Blood on the Fields, commissioned by Jazz at Lincoln Center.