Believe in yourself, and find ways to express yourself, and find the discipline to keep growing.
Michael Feinstein
I've always found that the most powerful way to create change is to be myself and not be afraid to express who I am.
I just didn't like the word 'gay.' I still don't like it. It's a dumb way of describing sexuality. I like 'queer' or other words, but 'gay' is a word that had a completely different-meaning word and has been reappropriated. I just don't like it.
Activism is a very admirable way to create change, but it has to go hand in hand with personal contact with the people with whom we have opposing points of view; without that, there will never be any movement.
As hackneyed and cliche as it sounds, follow your heart. We are all given intuition and instincts, and sometimes it is hard to follow those instincts with the fears and pressures that surround us - but you have to do it.
For me, there is no point in doing a duet unless it is organic or there is an emotional thru line.
I meditate a lot and pray for guidance. If, in a moment of self-contemplation or meditation, I were to feel very strongly that I shouldn't be an entertainer anymore, that I should be doing something else, I would stop immediately.
When Sondheim was visiting the Library of Congress, where the manuscript of 'Porgy and Bess' is housed, he was so overcome with emotion while holding the score in his hands that he shed a tear. He shed several tears, but one of the tears actually fell onto the original manuscript. And he was horrified.
I've had a couple of times where things were so extraordinary wonderful that it changed my world. One of them was when I met Ira Gershwin and started working with him. That was a game-changer for me. It changed the entire course and direction of my life.
I'm very mindful of trying to do something good in the world. When I see injustice in the world, it's very hard for me.
He's a world-famous name to people who care about his music, but there are many people who have never heard of George Gershwin and those numbers increase.
Most of the musicals I go to I simply don't enjoy, so I don't go to them unless a number of people I trust say I have to.
The Gershwin legacy is extraordinary because George Gershwin died in 1937, but his music is as fresh and vital today as when he originally created it.
There's a truth that comes through when an author performs his own work that is unique and special.
Sound preservation is not only the history of our culture and our country but also a document of life in the world. There is something with sound that is so extraordinary that it can be preserved, that we can listen to a recording made in 1925 and be transported back to that time.
When people ask me where I live, I say I live mainly on the road.
I started out as a pianist and singer in gay and piano bars - they were the only places I could get a job singing show tunes.
My entire career proves to me that if you believe in what you're doing, you will reap the benefits.
I think it should be illegal for people to throw away music.
I will not programme generic orchestrations but try to find original ones - when I play Richard Rodgers songs, for example, I have Peggy Lee's original orchestrations that I got from her granddaughter for them.
I always try to get back to the original source of the song. It's not always there in the sheet music, which is sometimes just a sketchy blueprint of what the song is about.
The arts are tremendously powerful in bringing people with opposing views together.
Certainly the most requested song in performance is 'Love is Here to Stay,' and that is a favorite for me.
Sinatra is so connected with the persona of the 'Guys and Dolls' characters even though he had great conflicts with Frank Loesser personally.
It's great when people have the confidence to discuss their sexuality if it works for them. I can't fault someone for not coming out, because I don't know their journey, what scares them, what's at stake, or how it will affect their personal life or family.
I've certainly developed as a vocalist. I find my early recordings very difficult to listen to.
I wake up every day and count blessings.
