Broadway stars Kristin Chenoweth and Michael Feinstein helped raise $600,000 September 30 at the sixth annual Songbook Celebration benefit concert for the Center for the Performing Arts in Carmel, Indiana.
The Center also accepted Hollywood film star Mitzi Gaynor’s donation of her extensive collection of musical charts and other memorabilia from her six-decade career to its Great American Songbook Foundation. Gaynor was welcomed into the Center’s Hall of Fame along with the posthumous inductions of jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald and lyricist Ray Gilbert.
Feinstein, who serves as artistic director for the center and founder of the Great American Songbook Foundation, performed with Tony Award winner Chenoweth for 500 guests at the Palladium Concert Hall. The money raised will go to support the center’s artistic and educational programming.
The Foundation’s Songbook Archives and Library holds more than 100,000 items representing creators, performers and publishers of American popular music, including sheet music, recordings and other artifacts from artists such as songwriters Meredith Willson (The Music Man), Johnny Burke (“Swinging on a Star”), Gus Kahn (“It Had to Be You”), and Hy Zaret (“Unchained Melody”).
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