A host of Broadway favorites can be heard on the new PS Classics recording Parting Gift: The Songs of Gerald Ginsburg, which is available on CD beginning July 12. A digital version was released June 21.

Lending their vocals to the songs of the late Ginsburg are Shereen Ahmed, Mikaela Bennett, Philip Chaffin, Will Chase, Tony winner Victoria Clark, Jason Danieley, Adrienne Danrich, Jordan Donica, Colin Donnell, Telly Leung, Paul Lincoln, Patti Murin, Tony winner Kelli O'Hara, Elena Shaddow, Nathaniel Stampley, Elizabeth Stanley, and Lauren Worsham.

Listen to Jordan Donica Sing 'I Want to Die While You Love Me' From Parting Gift Album

The collection—highlighting the composer’s lifelong work, a style he dubbed “theatre lieder”—features musical settings of poetry by W. B. Yeats, Edna St. Vincent Millay, and E. E. Cummings. The songs are orchestrated by Jonathan Tunick, Doug Besterman, Larry Hochman, Michael Starobin, Chris Jahnke, and John Baxindine, among others, and performed by an orchestra of 17 under the baton of Richard Carsey.

Ginsburg, born in 1932 in Nebraska, attended Oberlin College and the Manhattan School of Music, but after a lauded debut at Carnegie Hall in 1974, self-doubt led the composer to keep much of his music to himself. When he died in 2019, the full evidence of his years of solitary work was revealed. Many of those songs are featured on the new recording.

Grammy nominee Tommy Krasker, co-founder of PS Classics, said in an earlier statement, “I received a call last summer from the estate of Gerald Ginsburg. The name, I confess, meant nothing to me. They wanted to make an album, and sent me a sampling of his songs—I listened, and I couldn’t get them out of my head. I found him an extraordinary talent. I decided to come out of producorial retirement to oversee the album personally. I started by approaching some of the artists who’ve meant the most to me over the last 30 years and see if they would come aboard for one or two numbers that we’d orchestrate especially for them.

"Remarkably, pretty much every performer I contacted—after hearing the songs—said yes. They heard what I did. Then I started to approach artists I didn’t know, whom I admired but had never worked with—and they said yes, too. And then I started reaching out to orchestrators, and every one of them, once they heard the material, signed on. It was the most incredible combination of talents in the recording studio, making absolutely remarkable music."

The complete track listing for Parting Gift: The Songs of Gerald Ginsburg follows:

1. A Single Song – Kelli O’Hara – Poem (“Compensation”) by Sara Teasdale
2. The Coolin’ – Will Chase – Poem by James Stephens
3. I Want to Die While You Love Me – Jordan Donica – Poem by Georgia Douglas Johnson
4. Parting Gift – Elena Shaddow – Poem by Elinor Wylie
5. Brown Penny – Philip Chaffin – Poem by William Butler Yeats
6. If There Were Dreams to Sell – Patti Murin – Poem (excerpt of “Dream-Pedlary”) by Thomas Lovell Beddoes
7. Little Boy Blue – Colin Donnell – Poem by Eugene Field
8. Breath of a Rose – Elena Shaddow – Poem by Langston Hughes
9. When We Two Parted – Jason Danieley – Poem by George Gordon Byron
10. At Tea – Elizabeth Stanley – Poem by Thomas Hardy
11. Will Ever – Telly Leung – Poem by Walter de la Mare
12. What Lips My Lips Have Kissed – Victoria Clark – Poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay
13. Spring is like a perhaps hand – Philip Chaffin – Poem by E. E. Cummings
14. There Will Come Soft Rains – Mikaela Bennett – Poem by Sara Teasdale
15. Bells in the Rain – Adrienne Danrich – Poem by Elinor Wylie
16. Birth/Lonely Nocturne – Nathaniel Stampley – Poems by Langston Hughes
17. I Am Cherry Alive – Lauren Worsham – Poem by Delmore Schwartz
18. The Road to Avrillé – Elizabeth Stanley – Poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay
19. Parting – Jordan Donica – Poem (“The Gardener LXI: Peace, My Heart”) by Rabindranath Tagore
20. i carry your heart with me – Patti Murin & Colin Donnell – Poem (“[i carry your heart with me (i carry it in]”) by E. E. Cummings
21. Love’s Philosophy – Paul Lincoln – Poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley
22. i thank you God – Jason Danieley – Poem (“i thank You God for this amazing”) by E. E. Cummings
23. Velvet Shoes – Shereen Ahmed – Poem by Elinor Wylie

The recording is produced by Krasker and Bart Migal.

Visit PSClassics.com.