Following Jimmy Valentine is an 18-song cast album featuring West End stars Hadley Fraser, Kerry Ellis, and Celinde Schoenmaker, jazz legend Jacqui Dankworth, and rising stars David Hunter, George Blagden, Alison Arnopp, and Simon Shorten. Written and composed by Jeff Flaster, this cast album grew out of the full-cast audiobook musical Following Jimmy Valentine, which was inspired by an O. Henry story about reinvention and a Hudson River School painting about hope. The score applies the principles of classical music to the genres of jazz, pop, and classic rock, with an emphasis on soaring melody, sweeping emotion, and songs that stand on their own while serving a larger story.
The musical idea at the heart of Following Jimmy Valentine began with Asher B. Durand’s Hudson River School painting The Beeches, which inspired Flaster to write a song starting with the words, “The war is over, but I still feel the shadow.” Inspired by Beethoven, Flaster developed the musical ideas in that one line into the heart of every song. Jeff Flaster is a composer, storyteller, listener, and reader whose work begins with a lifelong fascination with melody. Raised by two mathematicians, he majored in mathematics at MIT while singing with the MIT Chorallaries, finding art in the equations and math in the melodies. When writing music, Flaster applies the principles of classical music to the genres of jazz, pop, and classic rock. He describes his style by asking, “What would it sound like if Beethoven wrote a country song?”
INSTRUMENTALISTS Patrick Stockbridge — Piano, programmed orchestra, Jamie Stockbridge — Saxophone, flute, clarinet, Abigail Jackson — Violin, viola, Miranda Lewis-Brown — Cello. Recorded at Jukebox Studios with Steven Kobong Produced for melodic.com by Sarah Golding of Wireless Theatre Mastered by Ross Burman Website:
