Empire Trio, performing in Wolfeboro, breathes new life into old favorites

WOLFEBORO — The canon of tunes known as The Great American Songbook were largely written as musical devices to advance larger stories, either told onstage or through cinema. Yet, some of these songs were so brilliantly crafted they have transcended the film or musical they were written for, and become appreciated as works of art in their own right. Some songs are now favorites of the great jazz performers of the 20th century.

Those performers — Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, among many others — turned them into standards, sonic playgrounds for musicians to explore. Yet, despite decades of interpretation and improvisation, there’s room for more exploration. That’s the view of the three members of The Empire Trio, who performed in Lakeport last month and are taking the stage Thursday, Aug. 24, as part of the Great Waters music festival.

Empire Trio — soprano Erin Shields, baritone Adam Cannedy and pianist and violinist David Shenton — apply their classical expertise to these standards, presenting them with bespoke arrangements that both showcase the three performers’ skills, and provide a level of musical sophistication to songs that were originally simple and melody-forward.

Speaking from Italy, where the married Shenton and Shields were between their Lakes Region dates, they said their upcoming performance will feature a mix of favorites from both Broadway — "Les Miserables," "Phantom of the Opera," "Cats," "My Fair Lady" — and Hollywood, such as "Singin’ in the Rain," "The Wizard of Oz" and "Titanic."

Shenton said Empire Trio was formed as a way for the performers to break free from the boxes many performers find themselves confined within.

“We’re all classically trained performers,” Shenton said. “When you study a discipline, you’re kind of pigeon-holed.”

For example, Shields studied opera, but wouldn’t be able to explore her passion for Broadway and Hollywood songs if she followed her training. Likewise, her classical training wouldn’t be fully utilized in a career in musical theater.

“One of the reasons we started this trio is so that we could ... not stick to one genre,” said Shenton. “When we do our shows, we can sing what we like, we can jump around [between genres] and do what we please.”

They also get to flex their compositional chops, adding harmonies beneath the melody, or “mashing” two different songs that play with the same chord progression.

Shields noted that a three-performer tour can travel farther and wider than can a Broadway tour, which means they can bring beloved songs to people who might not otherwise have the ability to see them performed live.

“We take some of the most famous songs, duets, trios, we make them our own with our own arrangements and style,” Shields said. “It’s nice to go see 'My Fair Lady,' [but] sometimes you just want to hear the top hits.”

In doing so, they also present the material in a way that audience members, even Broadway connoisseurs, will find novel. And that doesn’t even count Shenton’s show-stopper, a one-man duet in which he plays the violin and piano concurrently. It sounds like it's not possible, but he insists it is, for him at least.

“We’re keeping these songs alive,” Shields said, bringing them to people who perhaps haven’t seen them performed in person before, and certainly haven’t seen them performed exactly the Empire Trio way. “It’s a nice way for them to hear it, and they’ll hear it in the way that we do it.”

Visit greatwaters.org for ticket information.