I Hear America Singing

August 17, 2000 • Dayton Art Institute - The premise for the concert was simple: songs from shows Muse had not performed. Shortly into assembling the tracks, the creative team sensed that the show might become something exciting. Songs from familiar titles like Chicago, Sweeney Todd and Rent were balanced alongside particularly fun, somewhat lesser-known pieces from shows including A New Brain, Grand Hotel and Lady In The Dark, among others. The result was an often surprising, fast-moving and funny concert with some of the best performances our concert stage had seen. In the days following the sold-out concert, musicians and singers returned to the studio to create the next album with famed recording engineer/producer, John McClure (producer of Igor Stravinsky, Leonard Bernstein, John Williams and Pink Floyd, to name a few). The recording received strong reviews, including one from Stephen Flaherty, Broadway composer of Ragtime, which appears on the album!