The Mabel Mercer Foundation
The
Mabel Mercer Foundation is a non-profit arts organization which
perpetuates the memory and spirit of the legendary cabaret artist
Mabel Mercer by stimulating and promoting public interest in cabaret
music and the fragile and endangered art of cabaret, most dramatically
through the Annual Cabaret Convention at Town Hall in New York City.
The
Mabel Mercer Foundation was formed on February 3, 1985, Miss Mercer's
birthday, less than a year after her death in 1984. Born in 1900 in
Staffordshire, England, this cabaret legend was performing at age
14 in Britain and the Continent. By the 1930's she was the toast of
Paris and had introduced her inimitable style of cabaret singing which
beguiled such steadfast admirers as Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein,
F. Scoff Fitzgerald and the Prince of Wales. With the onset of WWII,
she came to America to begin a now legendary series of NY Supper Club
and Night Club engagements.
After
an absence of 41 years, Miss Mercer was accompanied by her long-time
friend and publicist, Donald Smith, for a long-awaited return to England
on July 4, 1977. So great was the public acclaim on her return to
London that the BBC filmed her performances and devoted an entire
week to a series of broadcasts - an honor never before accorded to
an entertainer.
In
1978, her album "Midnight at Mabel Mercer's" was named by STEREO REVIEW
as one of the best recording in the past 20 years. To celebrate her
78th birthday that year, she played a sold-out engagement in San Francisco's
Club Mocambo. In 1981, the Whitney Museum of American Art honored
Miss Mercer with "An American Cabaret", the first celebration of its
kind in the museum's history. And in 1983, President Ronald Reagan
presented Mabel Mercer with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. He
described her as "a singer's singer" and "a living testament to the
artfulness of the American song."
Donald
Smith, Executive Director of the Mabel Mercer Foundation, recently
wrote "There is a real hunger for the music sung in the cabarets.
The soundtracks from the films WHEN HARRY MET SALLY and SLEEPLESS
IN SEATTLE is this class of classical popular music. These CD's sell
millions; Natalie Cole's UNFORGETTABLE went platinum twice. Earlier,
Linda Ronstadt's three albums with Nelson Riddle sold three million.
Michael Feinstein and Harry Connick Jr.'s albums sell thousands of
records. But sadly, the public cannot hear this music on television
and only selectively on the radio.
The
American Songbook is one of our national treasures and the art of
cabaret is a gateway to an eternal appreciation and celebration of
the genius of the Gershwins, Cole Porter, Rodgers and Hart, Jerome
Kern, Oscar Hammerstein, Leonard Bernstein, Jerry Herman and Stephen
Sondheim. The Mabel Mercer Foundation aims to make American popular
music and the art of cabaret thrive and efforts continue on a regular
basis to promote the traditions so eloquently and unforgettably exemplified
by the great cabaret singer, Mabel Mercer.
Since
its inception in 1990, the Cabaret Convention has hosted more than
400 performers, all of whom are working in his or her own way in this
country and abroad to keep the tradition of cabaret performance alive,
including Michael Feinstein, Andrea Marcovicci, Jeff Harnar, Julie
Wilson, Margaret Whiting, Ann Hampton Callaway, Amanda McBroom, Maureen
McGovern, Barbara Carroll, David Staller, Meg Mackay, Phillip Officer,
Mary Cleere Haran and Karen Akers.
For
more detailed Information about the Foundation and this year's Cabaret
Convention, please contact the Mabel Mercer Foundation headquarters
in New York at 1-212-980-3026 or write to them at:
THE MABEL
MERCER FOUNDATION
Attn: Donald Smith, Executive Director
160 East 48th Street - #14U
New York, NY 10017
www.mabelmercer.org
2001
NYC CABARET CONVENTION REPORT
2000
NYC CABARET CONVENTION REPORT
1999
NYC CABARET CONVENTION REPORT
1998
NYC CABARET CONVENTION REPORT
1997
NYC CABARET CONVENTION REPORT
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