Broadway-bound musical to debut in Dumaguete

Dumaguete City -- A group of volunteer-artists is working feverishly to polish what could be the next musical to hit Broadway.

The Song of Solomon, a musical inspired by the romantic Old Testament Book with the same name, will debut at the Luce Auditorium here on November 15 and will run until the18th.

For composer Andrew Beall, this is the first time he will be seeing the realization of the dream he had started in 2006.

After he finished writing the song cycle and premiered it at New York University for his masters recital, he did several other performances until after a performance in Chicago where someone approached him to commission him to expand The Song of Solomon further, by adding a string orchestra.

Beall and lyricist Neil Van Leeuwen kept improving on the musical until they came out with a concept album in 2016 featuring a bunch of artists and a 22-piece orchestra. As fate would have it, New York-based Filipino performer Miguel Braganza attended that performance.

“When I heard the concept album in New York, I felt the urge to do something great for my country -- I wanted right away to bring The Song of Solomon to the Philippines!,” he said. /