Meet Mary Cleere Haran and read what the critics have said....

meet....
Mary Cleere Haran

For the last decade, Mary Cleere Haran has been unanimously adored by critics, comparing her singing to Ella Fitzgerald, Peggy Lee, Doris Day and Rosemary Clooney.

She began her performing career in the original Broadway cast of THE 1940's RADIO HOUR, Off-Broadway in THE HEEBIE JEEBIES and HOLLYWOOD OPERA and San Francisco's longest running musical hit, BEACH BLANKET BABYLON. But her first love is club-singing and she has brought her witty, musically sophisticated cabaret act to such rooms as Rainbow & Stars, Michael's Pub, The Ballroom, The Russian Tea Room, and The Oak Room at The Algonquin Hotel in New York; the Cinegrille in Los Angeles, San Francisco's Plush Room, Philadelphia's Barrymore Room at the Bellevue Hotel as well as numerous other cabarets and concert halls throughout the U.S.

In 1993, Mary scored a great success with her one-woman show You Might As Well Live, the highlight of the centenary celebration of Dorothy Parker at The Algonquin Hotel. Then from 1991-1996 with her musical director Richard Rodney Bennett she perched at New York's Rainbow & Stars cabaret introducing such shows as An Affair To Remember: Movie Songs of the 50s and This Funny World: Lyrics By Hart. In the fall of 1997, she returned to the Oak Room at The Algonquin for the critically acclaimed run of Pennies From Heaven: Movie Songs of the 30s. In 1998 she presented "The Memory of All That" in honor of George Gershwin's centennial at the Algonquin and went on to record songs from the show on her CD for Managra. In 1999 Mary rings in the millenium with "Crazy Rhythm: Manhattan in the 20s." This "dazzling new show" was extended after its successful run at the Oak Room at the Algonquin in September.

Her first album, There's A Small Hotel: Live at the Algonquin (Columbia Records), was greeted by rave reviews in People Magazine. Her next releases, This Heart of Mine: Classic Movie Songs of the 40s and This Funny World: Lyrics by Hart (Varése/Saraband), part of the 1995 Lorenz Hart centennial celebration, were placed in the "Top 21 Albums of the Year" by Stephen Holden of the New York Times and in the "Top 10 Vocal Albums" by PULSE magazine for two consecutive years. Her CD, Pennies From Heaven was named #1 Vocal Album of 1998 by PULSE magazine.
She has brought her writing talents to such PBS television specials as: Remembering Bing, Irving Berlin's America, When We Were Young: the Lives of the Child Movie Stars, Satchmo and Doris Day: A Sentimental Journey. She has written liner notes for the Stan Getz reissue from Polygram and most recently, she published feature articles on lyricist Dorothy Fields and Frank Sinatra in New York's The Village Voice and was one of a select group asked to write on Frank Sinatra in The New York Times after his death. Her latest article, "How Peggy Lee Changed My Life," appeared in the January 1999 issue of Modern Maturity magazine.

Click below for her newest album
The Memory of All That:
Gershwin on Broadway & in Hollywood

meet... Sir Richard Rodney Bennett

Sir Richard Rodney Bennett is one of the most prolific and gifted composers of his generation in the fields of orchestra, chamber, vocal and choral music, but he is equally at home in the world of American popular song.

From clubs such as Rainbow and Stars in New York, to the Pizza-on-the-Park in London, to Australia, Hong Kong and New Zealand, Richard has gained renown as one of the most sophisticated and stylish singer-pianists-arrangers on the scene.

Richard began his career accompanying and arranging for Cleo Laine in the early 1970s. He then went on to work with Marion Montgomery, Chris Connor, Carol Sloane, Ann Hampton Callaway and Mary Cleere Haran.

He has collaborated with Mary Cleere in performance and on CD for the last five years, including This Funny World, Pennies From Heaven and the soon to be released Gershwin tribute, The Memory of All That. Richard has also performed his solo show Nobody Else But Me in many countries.

Moviegoers know his name from over 50 film scores like Four Weddings and a Funeral, and his Oscar nominations for Murder on the Orient Express, Far From the Madding Crowd, and Nicholas and Alexandra, as well as the classics Billy Liar, Equus and Yanks.

Richard received New York's 1995 MAC Award as Best Solo Singer-Instrumentalist. He also has numerous solo albums to his credit in addition to his work as accompaniest to some of the world’s greatest vocalists.

In July of 1998, in a ceremony at Buckingham Palace, Queen Elizabeth II proclaimed him a knight of the British realm.

CLICK HERE for Richard Rodney Bennett's Movie Career