Kelli O’Hara and Ron Raines to Salute Past Presidents on American Spirit Album

Just in time for the presidential election, Tony nominees Kelli O’Hara and Ron Raines are lending their vocals to songs about past POTUS's. The pair will sing on Celebrating the American Spirit, a new album that hopes to preserve music of the American 21st century songbook. Judith Clurman conducts the album, which will be released on October 23.

The CD’s centerpiece, Sing Out, Mr. President, is a song cycle of 16 new compositions set to quotations from American presidents. The songs will be written by a number of American composers including Jason Robert Brown, Larry Hochman, Andrew Lippa, Samuel Adler, Milton Babbitt, Robert Beaser, Thomas Cabaniss, Jake Heggie, Michael Gilbertson, Paul Moravec, Georgia Stitt, Jesse Wiener, Nico Muhly, Nora Kroll-Rosenbaum and Zachary Wadsworth. The cycle was originally performed at the Library of Congress and broadcast on National Public Radio.

American Spirit will also feature new and re-arranged works from famous composers like Irving Berlin, Leonard Bernstein, Sheldon Harnick, Jennifer Higdon, Laurie Hochman, Stephen Paulus, Marc Shaiman and John Philip Sousa.

Before the album comes out you can watch O'Hara get patriotic in an adorable sailor suit during her acclaimed run in Rodgers and Hammerstein's South Pacific!