The New York Pops 43rd Birthday Gala: “Changed for Good: A Celebration of Stephen Schwartz”

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By Jack Quinn

Publisher

The New York Pops’ 43rd Birthday Gala honoring Stephen Schwartz did not present itself as a ceremonial evening. It moved with purpose, cleanly built, with no drag between numbers and no need to overstate its significance. Under music director Steven Reineke, the orchestra kept a steady line—bright brass, controlled strings, and arrangements that stayed responsive to the singers rather than imposing weight on them. The result was a program that trusted the material and let the performers meet it directly.

What distinguishes this gala is not only the caliber of performance but the structure surrounding it. This is the Pops’ largest fundraiser of the year, and the proceeds are not abstract. They feed directly into PopsEd, the orchestra’s long-running music education arm, which provides in-school instruction, performance opportunities, and access across New York City. That mission was not explained from the stage. It was visible in the room.

The Kids in the Balcony program filled the upper tier of Carnegie Hall with students attending free of charge. They were not highlighted or separated out. They were simply there, part of the audience, absorbing the same performance as everyone else. It changed the sense of the room—less insulated, more open.

Onstage, the Kids On Stage participants made the connection explicit. Middle-school students, selected through audition and trained through the PopsEd pipeline, performed side by side with the orchestra in the Wicked sequence. They held their positions, tracked the music, and stayed within the ensemble rather than reaching for attention. The discipline was evident. This was not a showcase. It was a continuation of training.

A further layer came from the student conducting apprentices—high school musicians studying with Reineke and director Brian Worsdale. Their presence signals something more structural: leadership introduced early, not in theory but within the working environment of a professional concert. At the end of the pipeline, scholarships were awarded—three-week placements at the French Woods Festival of the Performing Arts—extending the training beyond a single night.

That structure came into focus in a quieter way as well. Seated beside me were the mother and grandmother of one of the Camp Broadway performers, Lucinda Biado-Luis, a 14-year-old from Beaverton, Oregon. Her mother, Leah Beato Luotto, and her grandmother, Lou, followed her closely once the ensemble took the stage. Lucinda has been studying musical theater for three years and dance for five, and attends an arts and communication magnet school. At Camp Broadway, the process moved quickly—group work, callbacks, then placement forward. When she appeared, that progression was visible. She stayed inside the ensemble line, attentive, grounded, not pushing past the moment. The work was still forming, but the structure around it was already in place.

The professional performances met that same standard of clarity.

Shoshana Bean’s “Bless the Lord” from Godspell built steadily, the vocal line riding the rhythm section without strain. Ben Platt approached “Corner of the Sky” from Pippin without forcing its anthem quality, letting the search sit in the phrasing. Tituss Burgess shaped “Meadowlark” from The Baker’s Wife with sustained control, the tone opening without losing narrative focus. Mary Testa’s “It’s an Art” from Working was exact, driven by articulation and timing rather than embellishment. Lindsay Mendez kept “Stranger to the Rain” from Children of Eden grounded, allowing the harmonic movement to carry the emotion.

Judy Kuhn’s “Colors of the Wind” from Pocahontas remained clear and centered, the line supported without excess. Kyle Dean Massey kept “Out There” from The Hunchback of Notre Dame direct and buoyant. Aisha Jackson and Jasmine Amy Rogers blended effectively in “When You Believe” from The Prince of Egypt, neither voice pulling the balance off center. Sherie Rene Scott gave “This Is Not the Way” from The Queen of Versailles a fractured phrasing that felt lived rather than presented.

The shift into Wicked reframed the evening. Brittney Johnson’s “Popular” stayed rhythmically tight, letting the humor sit in the structure. Mary Kate Morrissey built “Defying Gravity” in measured steps, the release arriving through accumulation rather than force. The Kids On Stage ensemble filled out the sequence, not as ornament but as extension.

When Stephen Schwartz entered for the final section, the program narrowed its focus. “Beautiful City” and “For Good” did not need elaboration. They closed the evening in the same spirit that had guided it—clear, direct, and without excess.

The achievement of the night is not just that the songs hold. It is that the system around them holds. Performance, training, access, and continuation are not treated as separate efforts. They operate together, in the same room, at the same time.

That is what this gala demonstrates. Not a celebration attached to a mission, but a mission carried through the act of performance itself.

The New York Pops 43rd Birthday Gala: “Changed for Good: A Celebration of Stephen Schwartz “(April 27, 2026)

Carnegie Hall

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

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

Running time: one hour and 20 minutes without an intermission