Theater News

Barbara Cook to Receive Musical America’s Vocalist of the Year Award

Barbara Cook(© Michael Portantiere)
Barbara Cook
(© Michael Portantiere)

Broadway, concert, and cabaret veteran Barbara Cook has become the first pop performer ever to be named Vocalist of the Year by Musical America, the international directory of the performing arts. The award for the year 2007 will be presented tomorrow (December 20, 2006) at Lincoln Center’s Kaplan Penthouse.

Other 2007 honorees include conductor Bernard Haitink (Musician of the Year), William Bolcom (Composer of the Year), pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard (Instrumentalist of the Year) and the Kennedy Center’s Michael Kaiser (Impresario of the Year).

Cook made her Broadway debut in Flahooley and went on to star in such shows as Plain and Fancy, Candide, The Music Man, The Gay Life, She Loves Me, and The Grass Harp. She has performed frequently in the world’s major concert halls and cabaret venues. In January, she was the first female pop singer to be presented by the Metropolitan Opera in a solo concert at the opera house.

Since 1898, Musical America has been the major source of contact information for performing arts worldwide. Recent winners of Musical America’s Vocalist of the Year award include Rolando Villazon, Susan Graham, Deborah Voigt, Rene Pape, Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, Dawn Upshaw, Renee Fleming, and Anne Sophie von Otter.