The New York Pops: Everything I Know: Mandy Gonzalez Sings Lin-Manuel Miranda

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Review by Jack Quinn, Publisher

Some concerts arrive with a charge in the air, and this one had it from the moment the lights went down. Everything I Know: Mandy Gonzalez Sings Lin-Manuel Miranda, directed by Dick Scanlan, didn’t need spectacle — the heart of the night was connection. Musical, personal, and unmistakably intimate. You could feel from the very first notes that this was a homecoming of sorts, shaped by shared history and deep affection.

Steven Reineke kept the New York Pops clean and focused, letting Miranda’s writing breathe in its natural clarity. And then Mandy walked out. The welcome she received felt like a collective exhale, the room meeting her with instant warmth. She performs from a place of calm strength, not flash, and that grounded presence guided the entire evening. It was clear we were in the hands of an artist completely aligned with the music she was singing.

“Breathe” from In the Heights was one of the earliest peaks. Gonzalez didn’t lean into memory or nostalgia; she kept the phrasing simple, letting the song’s core plea — “Just breathe” — sit plainly in the hall. The room went still. The moment matched something the program essay highlights: Miranda’s use of small, recurring lyrical anchors that quietly hold entire emotional structures together. Gonzalez didn’t underline any of it; she just trusted the song.

The shift into “The Hamilton Suite” brought a different energy. Gonzalez and Philippe Arroyo exchanged material with that familiar Miranda cadence — the forward-push that makes even a narrative toss-off feel like motion. “My Shot” landed easily with its pointed ambition — “I am not throwing away my shot” — without turning into a performance contest. Hearing the suite with a full orchestra made the writing feel surprisingly transparent: melody, rhythm, intention. No staging required.

As the night moved through Miranda’s multi-decade sweep — In the Heights, Bring It On, Hamilton, Vivo, Encanto, Moana — the connective tissue became obvious. His musical DNA is recognizable everywhere: the rhythmic lift, the conversational phrasing, the sense of generosity embedded in even the most compact lyric.

“Dos Oruguitas” arrived as one of the gentlest moments. Gonzalez sang it with clean, unadorned phrasing, letting the simple image — “Two little caterpillars” — carry its own emotional weight without leaning into sentimentality. Reineke’s orchestration gave it a warm but not sugary frame, and the moment passed as quietly as it arrived.

The program’s biggest burst of energy came with “New York, New York / Cheering for Me Now.” Gonzalez never forced it; she simply let the brass do its work. The lyric “The city’s yours” landed with just enough confidence to lift the room without abandoning the evening’s understated tone.

Even the encore, “Fearless,” stayed aligned with the night. With the chorus arranged in front of her, Gonzalez delivered the central refrain — “Be fearless” — plainly, without any attempt to turn it into a showstopper. It felt like a shared benediction rather than a finale.

These highlights stood out not because they were big, but because they were grounded. Nothing felt inflated or overworked. Reineke kept the orchestra responsive, and Gonzalez moved through Miranda’s catalog with the ease of someone who knows the material from the inside out — from the early basement-club creativity of Freestyle Love Supreme to the cross-platform storytelling that carries him from In the Heights to Encanto without changing his fingerprint.

In the end, the night landed so beautifully because it trusted the right people and the right instincts — Lin-Manuel Miranda’s writing at its most open-hearted, the Pops playing with that clean, grounded shimmer, and Mandy Gonzalez standing at the center of it all with the kind of presence that doesn’t require nostalgia or volume to fill a hall. It was a balanced, quietly confident evening that kept deepening as it went — the rare concert that earns its applause not through spectacle, but through the honesty and generosity of two artists who have been speaking the same musical language for years. It felt, in the best way, like witnessing a living conversation between them.

The New York Pops: “Everything I Know: Mandy Gonzalez Sings Lin-Manuel Miranda” (November 12, 2025)

Carnegie Hall

Stern Auditorium/Perlman Stage, 881 Seventh Avenue at 57^th Street, in Manhattan

For tickets, visit Carnegie Charge at 212-247-7800 or visits http://www.CarnegieHall.org

Running time: two hours and 30 minutes including one intermission