Monique sings Gershwin

Someone to Watch Over Me has been recorded so many times. So has Embraceable You. And The Man I Love. And Love is Here to Stay. And all those songs composed by George Gershwin with lyrics by his brother Ira. But time and thousands of interpretations heard, analyzed and enjoyed over the years have not at all diminished the charm of these songs or the excitement that the discovery of every new version brings.

That is the reason why it was difficult putting off listening to Monique Sings Gershwin. The combination of the songs and the artist performing them makes the album difficult to resist. Truth to tell, I believe that the fact that Monique Sings Gershwin is finally available locally should be considered an important event. Recorded in Japan, the album features 16 of Gershwin’s most popular works as interpreted by our very own Monique Wilson.

Monique is the actress behind the theater group New Voice Company and the much talked about local productions of The Vagina Monologues. She has years of acting experience, having started with Repertory Philippines when she was only nine years old. By the time she left to star in the original London production of Miss Saigon, she had already performed a total of 50 roles. She performed for three years with Miss Saigon and then continued her studies at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts. She came home and continued her involvement in theater, did a few movies, recorded an album and then put up New Voice, which has become a prime moving force in the local theater circuit. Somewhere in between all these, she recorded Monique Sings Gershwin.

George Gershwin is one of the greatest composers of modern times. He died while undergoing surgery to remove a brain tumor at the very young age of 38. He left behind a body of work that includes some of the most beautiful and certainly most enduring songs ever written. Strangely though, they are also among the most difficult to perform which must be why the colors, textures, even the barely audible sigh in every reading lends a new, different charm to these compositions.

Monique Sings Gershwin was produced by the Japanese label MusicScape as part of the commemoration of the centenary of Gershwin’s birth in 1998. Recorded at the Katsushika Symphony Hills, Iris Hall in Tokyo, the album is an acoustic production that has Monique singing accompanied only by Pierre Grill on the piano and Ernie Provencher on bass. These, combined with her reedy singing voice, invoke an old-time charm so suited to the music. Maybe this was the way Gershwin performed the early versions of these songs with him on the piano, a friend fiddling with the bass and the pretty leading lady of his latest musical doing the singing.

Surprisingly, it is Monique, the actress, who comes to mind while listening to the album. You feel her joy at discovering love in ‘S Wonderful, shake your head over how flirtatious she gets in Nice Work if You Can Get It and get the urge to break into dance in I Got Rhythm. Any good singer can do these songs well but the ability to tap into their nuances and bring them out to the listeners can only come from somebody as uniquely intuitive as Monique.

But I urge you not to mind me or my superlatives about this album. Please be warned that this piece was written by somebody who has always been addicted to Gershwin to the extent of once collecting versions of Rhapsody in Blue. Besides, it was also nice finding out that Monique has done something musical that is totally different and in no way associated with The Vagina Monologues. I urge you instead to find out for yourself what Monique Sings Gershwin offers. I am very sure you will love finding yourselves lost in rapture while listening to this one.

The songs included are Isn’t It a Pity?, Nice Work if You Can Get It, It Ain’t Necessarily So, I’ll Build a Stairway to Paradise, The Man I Love, Summertime,’S Wonderful, How Long Has This Been Going On? I Got Rhythm, My Man’s Gone Now, Someone to Watch Over Me, Embraceable You, Love is Sweeping the Country, But Not for Me, They Can’t Take That Away from Me and Love is Here to Stay.