Josephine Sanges: How My Heart Sings

Post author:Bart Greenberg
Post published:December 7, 2024
Reading time:3 mins read

Josephine Sanges

How My Heart Sings

Pangea, NYC, November 14, 2024

Reviewed by Bart Greenberg

Josephine Sanges
Photo: Bill Westmoreland

Over the 10 years or so since Josephine Sanges entered into the world of New York cabaret, she has shown much growth both vocally and dramatically as she has shared more and more of herself with her audience and enthralled them even more. She was assisted as always by her music director/pianist John M. Cook and under the expert direction of Jeff Harnar. Her newest show at the Pangea, How My Heart Sings, was a continuous delight from its hypnotic opening with the title number to its romantic ending (a blending of “My Shining Hour” (Harold Arlen/Johnny Mercer), “Beautiful Things” (Leslie Bricusse), and “The Best Is Yet to Come” (Cy Coleman/Carolyn Leigh) that promised a bright future; it was a lovely arc.

Over the course of her show she displayed her range and talents. In a medley of “You and the Night and the Music” (Arthur Schwartz/Howard Dietz) and “Let’s Face the Music and Dance” (Irving Berlin), she imbued each lyric with specific images and driving force. Her acting abilities came to the fore in a delightful and lengthy medley of 1970s pop songs she had learned from the radio. In them she seemed to transform herself into a teenager thrilling with such numbers as “Yesterday Once More” (Richard Carpenter/John Bettis), “I Feel the Earth Move” (Carole King), and “I Can See Clearly Now” (Johnny Nash). These were some of the 11 carefully chosen songs that captured a specific time and gave her a chance to use her powerful lower register to evoke teen angst.

She happily recreated her song from the 2015 Metrostar Competition that marked her debut in the cabaret community with a swinging version of “Fly Me to the Moon” (Bart Howard), and she spoke about how the world her singing brought her into has grown to mean so much to her. She shared two duets with Cook that demonstrated their interdependence with joy: “Everything I’ve Got Belongs to You” (Richard Rodgers/Lorenz Hart) in which Sanges appeared to relish the word “anesthesia” in the lyrics, and “You Gotta Have Me Go with You” (Harold Arlen/Ira Gershwin). She brought a feeling of joy to everything she did in her show, which made the audience look forward to what she might offer in the future.

Tags: Musicals, Yesterday Once More, Singer, Irving Berlin, Bart Greenberg, Lyricist, Music Director, Leslie Bricusse, Carolyn Leigh, John M. Cook, Howard Dietz, Everything I’ve Got Belongs to You, pangea, Cabaret Reviews, Johnny Mercer, You and the Night and the Music, Arthur Schwartz, Johnny Nash, Great American Songbook, CD Reviews, Bart Howard, Richard Carpenter, Fly Me to the Moon, How My Heart Sings, Jeff Harnar, Clubs, Cy Coleman, NYC, Metrostar Competition, Broadway, composer, Richard Rodgers, I Can See Clearly Now, Pianist, You Gotta Have Me Go with You, Carole King, The Best is Yet to Come, Lorenz Hart, I Feel the Earth Move, songwriter, Harold Arlen, Bill Westmoreland, Ira Gershwin, American Songbook Association, Let’s Face the Music and Dance, Cabaret, My Shining Hour, American Songbook, ASA, Vocalists, Broadway Musicals, Josephine Sanges, Nightclubs, Beautiful Things, Cabaret Scenes, CD, John Bettis

Bart Greenberg

Bart Greenberg first discovered cabaret a few weeks after arriving in New York City by seeing Julie Wilson and William Roy performing Stephen Sondheim and Cole Porter outdoors at Rockefeller Center. It was instant love for both Ms. Wilson and the art form. Some years later, he was given the opportunity to create his own series of cabaret shows while working at Tower Records. "Any Wednesday" was born, a weekly half-hour performance by a singer promoting a new CD release. Ann Hampton Callaway launched the series. When Tower shut down, Bart was lucky to move the program across the street to Barnes & Noble, where it thrived under the generous support of the company. The series received both The MAC Board of Directors Award and The Bistro Award. Some of the performers who took part in "Any Wednesday" include Barbara Fasano and Eric Comstock, Tony Desare, Andrea Marcovicci, Carole Bufford, the Karens, Akers, Mason and Oberlin, and Julie Wilson. Privately, Greenberg is happily married to writer/photographer Mark Wallis, who as a performance artist in his native England gathered a major following as "I Am Cereal Killer."