Noteworthy

Tony Award winner Adrienne Warren is used to performing onstage with a 20-piece orchestra in the small pit of Broadway theatres.

But she can’t wait to be joined this October by the significantly larger and robust TSO, who will be playing behind her when she premières her new concert, Simply the Best: A Tina Turner Tribute, with Principal Pops Conductor Steven Reineke at the podium. 

“When you’re in front of an orchestra it’s like you’re surfing this massive, enormous wave,” says Warren, on the phone from New York City. “As a vocalist, it’s the most incredible feeling. And it’s an honour, because I admire musicians so much.” 

Warren, who grew up in Virginia listening to her parents’ recordings of Turner’s music, was hand-picked by the legendary singer to play her in the musical biopic of her life, Tina: The Tina Turner Musical, which originated in London’s West End, where it continues to run.

“Tina nurtured me throughout most of the West End rehearsal process, and she gave me all kinds of pointers about her life and music, but mostly she was supportive,” says Warren. “And if she couldn’t be at a rehearsal, her husband, Erwin Bach, would be there.”

Those pointers obviously paid off. Warren was nominated for a prestigious Olivier Award in 2019, and then, when she performed the role on Broadway later that year, in a run that was interrupted by the pandemic, she won the Tony. 

This concert, however, will not recreate that show, and Warren, although performing with two backup singers, won’t be wearing Turner’s signature shaggy wig or shimmying minidresses onstage at Roy Thomson Hall.

Along with performances of signature songs like “Private Dancer”, “What’s Love Got to Do with It”, and “Proud Mary”, she will be telling stories about the songs and her connection to Turner and the material. Especially after the legend’s passing in May 2023, Warren felt like this concert was a way to honour her and keep her music heard, played, and loved. 

Conductor Reineke says Turner’s music adapts very well for symphony orchestras. 

“As with many pops concerts, the rhythm section—bass, drums, and guitar—is the core of the orchestra, but all of the brass, woodwind, and string parts fit in so beautifully with this genre of music, too,” he says in a separate interview. 

“Some of the songs are based on the original Turner recordings, while others are based on live recordings that Adrienne and I particularly like. And some are based on arrangements from the musical. We utilize the orchestra in the best way. That’s always my goal—to have music that’s challenging for the orchestra and also showcases them and their talents in the best possible way.”

Reineke, who later in the season conducts a pops concert called 21st-Century Broadway, featuring musical-theatre stars Hailey Kilgore (Once on This Island), Derek Klena (Jagged Little Pill), Javier Muñoz (Hamilton), and the Tony Award–winning Ali Stroker (Oklahoma!), says the lines have blurred in the past five to ten years between classical and pop.

“You’ve got classical musicians conducting things that might be considered more contemporary or pop, and pops conductors doing all kinds of interesting projects,” he says.

“One week I can be working with soprano Renée Fleming on an opera aria, and the next I’ll be working with Kendrick Lamar doing hip-hop. Singer-songwriter Cody Fry has a big internet presence, and he creates this music with a lush orchestral sound. So all the lines between genres are blurring, which is great.” 

For her part, Warren says she would love it if Simply the Best drew pop music fans to the symphony and they stuck around and considered other programming. 

“I hope that happens,” she says. “I hope people come to this concert and get curious about other concerts. I think our music halls should really start looking like the world we live in.”

And then there’s the matter of audience etiquette for a pops concert. 

“I have a feeling people are going to be wanting to dance in their seats,” says Warren, laughing. “It’s my responsibility as a performer to give people permission to do that. They’re there to enjoy the music. It isn’t Bach; it’s Tina Turner. You can dance in your seat, and I’ll even let you know when you can sing with me.”

Reineke says he’s witnessed all kinds of behaviour in his decades of conducting pops concerts.

“Canadians are so polite,” he says. “It took me a while to get the audience to relax, enjoy themselves, and participate. They’ve opened up a lot over the years. I do try to break down the wall between the audience and the stage, and talk to the audience as if we’re all just playing some music in my living room. I like to create the feeling that we’re doing this together, because music is something that’s meant to be shared.” 

Warren is excited that Toronto will be getting the first look at the concert. 

“I’ve been building this show for a while, and obviously sung many of these songs before, but this will be the first time they’re together in this sequence,” she says. A couple of days after the TSO concerts, she and Reineke will perform the same program at Carnegie Hall with The New York Pops. 

And starting March 2025, Warren will be performing six-days-a-week on Broadway opposite pop sensation Nick Jonas in the first Broadway staging of Jason Robert Brown’s 2001 musical two-hander The Last Five Years.

“As soon as Nick and I met we had chemistry and we hit it off,” she says. “We compared notes and realized we had similar upbringings. I can’t wait to go on this journey with him, director Whitney White and Jason Robert Brown.” 

Warren says she’s got musical and her own theatre fans, Jonas will bring generations of Jonas Brothers fans and Brown will have slightly older fans who have followed his works like Parade, The Bridges of Madison County and Honeymoon in Vegas.

“There’s going to be a little bit of everything going on in that audience,” she says. “We can feel the energy already. I never expected to be in a show like this — it was never on my radar as an artist, but I’m going to approach it as honestly as I can.”

Her approach to Simply the Best is similar. 

“The key, no matter what show you’re doing, is being as honest as you can be,” she says. “The audience knows when you’re not. You want them to go on a journey with you, so you need to be honest with them and have fun and share moments. Then people will connect with you. That’s so much more meaningful than just singing pretty songs.” 

Simply the Best: A Tina Turner Tribute with Adrienne Warren will be performed on Tuesday, October 15 at 8:00pm and Wednesday, October 16 at 2:00pm and 8:00pm.