I’ve just gotten done playing a couple dates in Amsterdam and Antwerp with the multiple-award-winning actress and singer Idina Menzel on her World Tour. For those that might not know her, she’s best known for her lead roles on Broadway and London’s West End as Maureen in the show Rent, Elphaba the Witch in Wicked, and Elizabeth Vaughan in If/Then. Although for those not familiar with the musical theater scene, she’s gained worldwide fame as the voice of Elsa in the animated film Frozen, and is the singer of the smash hit Let it Go, apparently known by every single child between the ages of born-16+, and for having John Travolta mispronounce her name as Adele Dazeem when he introduced her at the 2014 Oscars.

With a musical theater singer, it can be questionable what the music for a solo concert will be… but it was actually quite nice. She tours with a set band of piano, keyboard, guitar, bass, and drums,. The orchestra gets hired regionally and consisted of a string quartet, 3 woodwinds (alto sax/flute, tenor sax/clarinet, and bari sax/bass clarinet- my book), and 3 brass (2 trumpets/flugelhorns and trombone). She did, of course, play some of the hits from her Broadway shows and Frozen, but also an Ethel Merman medley, Creep by Radiohead, Roxanne/Love for Sale by The Police/Cole Porter, and some of her own songs. They were really nice arrangements, by six-time Grammy nominee and two time Emmy winner Rob Mounsey, who was also the pianist and musical director on the tour. The touring band were also all pretty heavy cats with some amazing credits to their names.

It was a pleasure to get to play alongside these great musicians, in a real professional environment. We just showed up around 14.00 the afternoon of the first show in Amsterdam’s Carré Theater, did a quick play-through and soundcheck of most the music and checked the tricky spots, broke for dinner, and came back for the show a couple hours later. The next day we all met in the Antwerp Stadsschouwburg at 15.00, checked only the spots that were questionable the night before, got the soundcheck levels, and were back at 20.00 for the show. The band naturally didn’t need the rehearsal, but it was also great that everyone else in the orchestra was such a high level to be able to just nail it like that.

Idina also seemed like a very nice, down-to-Earth person. She was always polite and smiling in the rehearsals, saying “Hi” when she saw us, and thanking us for being there… rather than some crazy diva bitch. She had quite a personality on stage, and had a funny banter with the audience. A really great performer.

The added bonus of playing with someone so famous is that the number of videos I’m in on YouTube has now exploded! Somehow most of the videos were taken pointing towards the other side of the stage, or else I’m hidden behind a stand or the bass player, but you can actually see me in some of them!

And in this one you can actually hear my bari sax playing the bass line.
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All in all, it was a fun show. I wouldn’t have minded doing a few more dates on the tour. I’ll just have to talk to the booker about that next time!