It kind of feels like every day is Judy Garland’s centennial in our house, since, on any given day, chances are I’m either knee-deep in restoring one of her original orchestral arrangements or practicing to sing a whole bunch of them with an orchestra. But a little extra celebration is definitely in order this year, so after you’ve baked a cake, finished watching all her movies, and listened to the Carnegie Hall album, here are three recordings that are far enough off-the-beaten-path that even some long-time Garland fans may not have come across them. All of them are personal favorites, and I hope you enjoy them, too!
Read MoreDuring the past five months I’ve been on a very steep learning curve — actually, more like something involving tornadoes and the yellow brick road — but on January 21st I’m going to get to share with 2000 people some of the results of the arduous journey: I’m going to get to sing two of Judy Garland’s original arrangements onstage with a symphony orchestra.
Of course, I’ve been singing Judy’s tunes with orchestras for a few years now, in wonderful arrangements based on the originals by two terrific arrangers (see an earlier post, "Getting Happy"). But for someone like me who loves time travel and Judy, suddenly having access to the actual note-for-note arrangements that we’ve all heard on her albums was an incredible stroke of good fortune that I’d never even allowed myself to hope for.
Here’s how it happened:
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