Tony Award-winning actress, singer and songwriter, Idina Menzel, star of Broadway's Wicked and the original stage production of Rent, will make her Greek Theatre debut Saturday, October 22, 2011. Celebrating the iconic venue's 80th Anniversary, the special engagement will be conducted by multi-award-winning conductor/composer Marvin Hamlisch with the Pasadena Pops.  Menzel — who also appeared in the hit television show Glee — will perform a repertoire of classic pop, musical theater favorites (including hits from Wicked and Rent), as well as selections from her album of original songs, I Stand.

ARTIST INFO:
Tony Award winner Idina Menzel has a diverse career on stage and in film, television, and music. She recently appeared on Fox's hit television show Glee, and is currently on a sold-out tour, performing with leading orchestras around the country, including performances with the New York Philharmonic and National Symphony Orchestra.

In 2009 Menzel co-starred with Josh Groban in the concert version of Chess: The Musical, recorded at London's Royal Albert Hall and broadcast on PBS. PBS also aired Menzel's solo New York show as part of their Mastercard Soundstage series.

In December 2005 she completed her role as the misunderstood Elphaba in Broadway's Wicked, for which she received a Tony Award for Lead Actress in a Musical and a Drama Desk Award nomination. She reprised the role in London's West End in September 2006, receiving the Theatregoers Choice Award for Best Actress in a Musical. Menzel also starred in Michael John LaChiusa's musical See What I Wanna See, directed by Ted Sperling at The Public Theater, garnering Drama Desk and Drama League Award nominations. Menzel also received a Drama Desk nomination for her performance as Kate in Manhattan Theater Club's Off-Broadway original musical, The Wild Party.

Menzel's other credits include a starring role in the film adaptation of the Pulitzer and Tony-Award winning musical Rent, for which she also originated her Tony nominated role of Maureen on Broadway.

Additional film credits include Disney's hit Enchanted, where she appeared opposite Susan Sarandon, Patrick Dempsey, and Amy Adams. Menzel also appeared in Robert Towne's "Ask the Dust," opposite Salma Hayek and Colin Farrell.

For more information, please visit www.idinamenzel.com.

As a composer, Marvin Hamlisch has won virtually every major award — three Oscars, four Grammys, four Emmys, a Tony, and three Golden Globe Awards. His ground-breaking musical, A Chorus Line, received the Pulitzer Prize. Other Broadway credits include They're Playing Our Song, The Goodbye Girl, Sweet Smell of Success, and Imaginary Friends. Mr. Hamlisch is also the composer of more than 40 motion picture scores, including his Oscar-winning score and song for The Way We Were, and his adaptation of Scott Joplin's music for The Sting, for which he received his third Oscar. His prolific output of film scores includes original compositions and/or musical adaptations for Sophie's Choice, Ordinary People, The Swimmer, Three Men and a Baby, Ice Castles, Take the Money and Run, Bananas, and Save the Tiger. Marvin Hamlisch is principal pops conductor for the Pasadena POPS in addition to the Pittsburgh, Colorado, Milwaukee, Dallas, and San Diego symphony orchestras. He was music director and arranger of Barbra Streisand's 1994 concert tour of the United States and England, as well as the television special Barbra Streisand: The Concert (for which he received two of his Emmys. Mr. Hamlisch made his New York Philharmonic debut on May 20, 2008, as conductor and host of Broadway's Greatest Showstoppers, and last appeared with the Orchestra on April 20, 2009, as host and conductor of New York Moments. 

The Pasadena Symphony and POPS is an ensemble of Southern California's most talented, sought after musicians.  With extensive credits in the film, television, recording and orchestral industry, the artists of Pasadena Symphony and POPS are the most heard in the world. In the fall of 2007, the Pasadena Symphony incorporated the Pasadena POPS into its Association under the new name Pasadena Symphony and POPS. This merger created an expanded Classics and POPS series providing the community with a full spectrum of live symphonic concerts year-round. The Pasadena POPS' summer home is on the Lawn adjacent the Rose Bowl and the Pasadena Symphony provides a musical experience like no other at the Ambassador Auditorium – known as the Carnegie Hall of the West.  Internationally recognized, Presidential Medal of Arts Recipient, Maestro James DePreist, serves as the Pasadena Symphony Association's Artistic Advisor.  The Pasadena POPS welcomes Marvin Hamlisch this season as its new Principal Pops Conductor beginning in summer 2011.

A hallmark of its robust education programs, the Pasadena Symphony Association has served the youth of the region since 1972 through the Pasadena Youth Symphony Orchestra comprised of over 160 gifted middle school students from more than 40 schools all over the Southland.  The PYSO has recently been invited to Colorado to perform with the Air Force Band Blue Steel, has toured extensively in Europe and has been featured on GLEE multiple times.