In some ways Jim Lahti’s career has come full circle. The San Francisco area born Classical Composer – Pianist and Conductor, who early in his career served as the Musical Director for numerous productions at the American Conservatory Theater in his hometown, was asked to be the Musical Director and write the arrangements for Broadway Sings For Pride: A Benefit Concert being performed on June 27^th, in New York City.  

The evening will feature some of the brightest stars who have appeared in high profile Broadway productions and / or been part of the cast for national tours of the same musicals, including the following; Rory O’Malley from the Broadway production of The Book of Mormon, Raymond J. Lee (Anything Goes and Mama Mia!), Russell Fischer (Jersey Boys), Tracy McDowell who appeared in the final cast of the Broadway production of Rent, Rebecca Larkin (Avenue Q, South Pacific), Matt Leisy (The Fantasticks), King Aswad (Rent – national tour), Renee Marino (West Side Story, Wonderland), Carly Jibson (Hairspray, Cry-Baby), Antonine L. Smith (Cats – national tour),Darius de Haas (Kiss of the Spider Woman, Carousel),  Moeisha McGill (Rent, Mama Mia!), Heather Parcells (Wonderland, A Chorus Line, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang), Jenn Furman (Wicked – national tour), Erica Ash (Baby Its You), Derek St Pierre (Rock of Ages) and King Aswad (Rent – national tour). They will be joined by numerous other celebrities such as Randy Jones a founding member of the Village People.

The concert is being produced by Neal Bennington, who first contacted Jim Lahti through Facebook, after hearing some of Mr. Lahti’s original Classical compositions at a concert that he attended.  

Says Mr. Lahti, “This is so different, from what I have been up to lately. This is the flip side of my Classical experience. Most of this stuff is Rock, but I am having a ball and I am writing arrangements. I lined up this fabulous guitarist Shawn Harkness and David Silliman who is just the most incredible drummer that I have ever experienced in my life The whole thing is to raise money for the LGBT Center on West 13^th Street in Greenwich Village. They are keeping the ticket prices low to make it affordable. It is a deal, because to hear any of these people, normally you would have had to pay between $75 and $100 for your theater ticket and you are getting to hear about fifteen of them, all on one concert for $20. Neal didn’t want it to be so expensive that only the people who always go to those things can (attend). He wanted it to be just regular people. This tends to be the younger, the new Broadway. It is Broadway like Taboo and Rent. It broadens my horizons. We are doing a couple of things from Rent. I didn’t know any of the music from Taboo. (From Rent) we are doing “Come On In From The Outside,” and that is almost like the finale. I am going to mix that with the Cyndi Lauper song “True Colors.” I have done a lot of Broadway type of music, but the older type of Broadway music,” says Jim Lahti and you easily detect the excitement in his voice as he talks about this concert.  

This has been an exciting spring for Jim Lahti as his original compositions such as, Three Songs On The Poems of Hart Crane and his Sonata for Viola and Piano, have been presented numerous times in New York City and New Jersey.

To some, Jim Lahti’s approach to creating new compositions may come as somewhat of a surprise or it may be considered somewhat unorthodox.

“I don’t compose at the piano. Stravinsky always composed at the piano and Gershwin did, but a lot of composers do not compose at the piano. The danger of composing on the piano, is if you are playing a figure to see if you like it, it may be a figure that sounds great on the piano, but it won’t be very natural for whatever instrument that it is going to be assigned to, such as the oboe or violin or whatever. I tend to compose in all sorts of odd places, sitting on rocks by the Hudson River or sitting on park benches and I never have paper with me. I compose in my head and I hear sounds. I am figuring out what are those sounds that I am hearing and how can I make them work? It is themes and motifs. The composing happens when I sit down here (at home), when I jot it down and I organize it, so that it makes sense to someone else. After I get all of my elements together, then I start writing it,” he explains.  

In Petaluma, California where Jim Lahti was born, his parents Thelma and Walt first tried to instill an interest in music in their son, when they purchased a beat-up, upright piano for $50.

“I showed no interest in it during the first two days or so, because I was four, so my mother said to hell with it and she got rid of the piano. A couple of years later, a family friend opened a music store in town and he had one more electric organ than he had room for, so he asked if we could store it (at our house), until he sold one.

My parents loved watching Lawrence Welk, when I was about six years old and I would sit there, while they were watching the show and when it was over, I would go over to the electric organ and I would start playing the pieces that I had just heard on Lawrence Welk. It dawned on them that maybe they ought to check into this and I started taking piano lessons. Then we got a piano. I loved it. I took lessons with Louie Hamilton, who had a big band on the west coast during the 1940s. I got solid Jazz theory (from him), rather than doing a lot of those Classical music things that piano teachers make kids do and that turns them off of music. Once we got going, he was giving me standards and teaching me about substitution chords, as well as teaching me about how Jazz harmony works, which came in really handy, when I got to college and I was studying Classical theory, because it is basically the same thing, only with different terminology. I started with a Jazz guy and then he got really old and sick, so they got me a new teacher, who was Classical and I went in kicking and screaming, until the second lesson and then I was in love with that.  I was about ten or eleven when I was introduced to Classical music,” he says.

Elementary school was not really a source of musical inspiration for Jim Lahti, as he was in what he describes as the next best thing to a one room schoolhouse, which was a two room schoolhouse that was built in 1870. There were only six children in his first grade class and there were three grades in the same room. It was not until he was in junior high that he had a chance to broaden his musical horizons from the private piano lessons that he was taking at home. He joined the chorus and he took up playing the French horn in the school band.  He started composing music in grade eight and at the commencement when the grade nine students graduated to grade ten the junior high school choir sang a choral piece that Jim Lahti had written and that was set to a poem by American poet Langston Hughes. When it came time for the high school graduation, history was repeated as another Jim Lahti original composition set to Psalm 117 was included during the commencement.

Jim Lahti’s musical education continued for the next two years, at Sonoma State University, where he says they had a wonderful faculty and he received a lot of private instruction in conducting and composition. He also served as the assistant conductor for the college chorus and the orchestra.

Realizing that he was one of only a few Classical students enrolled in the Sonoma State University music program, which at the time tended to draw musicians more from the hippie culture, he was encouraged to move to New York City where some of the faculty members felt, his career would have a better opportunity to flourish. After his move to New York City Jim Lahti would attend the Manhattan School of Music, play Jazz standards in nightclubs to help pay the bills and he eventually established himself as one of the brightest stars on the Classical music scene, having accompanied iconic soloist Renee Fleming in concert and having his music performed by highly respected soloist Ellen Wieser. Mr. Lahti has also collaborated with his actress / singer wife Mary Lahti to create two Cabaret productions.

Jim Lahti’s music has drawn praise from highly respected Classical Music show host, George Preston of WFMT FM in Chicago, who says, “Jim Lahti’s music brims with wit, intellect, sensitivity and humanity. A true and unique voice shines in Jim’s compositions, which are structurally and musically rigorous, while connecting with listeners on an emotionally visceral level. Perhaps because of his skill and experience as a performer, Jim knows how to move audiences, without pandering to them or compromising his own standards as a composer.”

Tickets for Broadway Sings For Pride: A Benefit Concert for the LGBT Center, which is also being presented at the Center, are available for $20 in advance by visiting this website or tickets can be obtained at the door for $25. The Center is located at 208 West 13^th Street between 7^th and 8^th Avenues.