The Dayton native will bring a classic evening of favorite tunes with an unconventional style and surprising twists to reveal the vocalist, storyteller, and comedian she truly is. Additionally, James will use her three-and-a-half octave range to let the audience in on her childhood obsession with jingles, theme songs and Broadway albums.
In addition to her role on “Broadway Names with Julie James,” for the On Broadway station, James also serves as the program director for the Metropolitan Opera radio station.
James’ platform on radio has given her the opportunity to interview countless stars, including Julie Andrews, Kristin Chenoweth, Anne Hathaway, Hugh Jackman, Patti LuPone, Rita Moreno, Bernadette Peters, Stephen Spielberg (a Cincinnati native,) Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and many others.
James said she continues to be humbled by the support she’s received from the Broadway community since joining Sirius XM more than a decade ago, but she’s equally appreciative of those in Dayton who nurtured her artistic talents. She recalled winning scholarship competitions from the Opera Guild of Dayton, for example.
She’s also quick to talk about how grateful she is for the guidance she received from her teachers, including her voice teacher Alice Hotopp of the University of Dayton, former Dayton Philharmonic music director Charles Wendelken-Wilson and her teachers from Dayton Christian. James said that family, friends and several of her teachers are expected to be at the show.
We caught up with Julie James by phone from her current home in New York City to find out more about the show as well as a few of her latest career highlights. James graduated from Dayton Christian High School, and she went on to study at Cincinnati’s College Conservatory of Music (CCM,) before graduating from the Boston Conservatory.
Q: Tell us a little bit about yourself.
Julie James: I grew up in Dayton and I attended Dayton Christian High School, which I’m sad to say that building is no longer, but I have a lot of great memories there. I performed growing up. Growing up in Dayton was so culturally rich. That was my experience in Cincinnati and Dayton, because I did go to CCM, and I worked for a season for the Cincinnati Opera. Being from that area, my appreciation has grown even further over the years, and especially as my career took me to the biggest dream of them all – to New York City – where I’ve lived and worked for a long time, but I still call Ohio home. Being from that area was so incredible as I’ve come to appreciate more over the years because of how culturally rich that area is for the size of those cities to have their own philharmonic orchestra, their own ballet company, their own opera company, and there are several great, reputable theater companies, a magnificent Dayton Art Institute and Cincinnati has its parallels for most of those things as well, especially for Dayton being a smaller city, compared to larger cities like New York, Los Angeles or Chicago, for it to be that culturally rich just laid a foundation for me that allowed me to pursue my dreams and be in New York City all of this time. I have appeared in theaters all over the country, I’ve been on Broadway, and biggest job is that I ended up becoming a host and a program director for Sirius XM, where I manage all of the programming for it’s On Broadway and Metropolitan Opera radio stations. I’ve studied both opera and theater, so for those worlds to meld in that way, where I would be working in broadcasting and radio programming, really are a testament to where I lived and what I learned growing up. I feel like every day of my life, I draw on what was built and the foundation that was laid for me in Dayton, and in Southern Ohio in general.
Q: Can you share about a recent interview or two?
A: I’ve talked to practically every hero that I could have possibly ever looked up to, you know, Patti LuPone, I was just in her dressing room with her the other day, Julie Andrews, and I recently talked Stephen Spielberg surrounding the “West Side Story” film, and he cut me off right away and said, ‘I listen to you all the time. I listen to you in my office, I listen to you at home, and I listen to you in the car.’ So, there’s just this tremendous shock when you hear something like that from somebody that you’ve admired your entire life, and to find out that they enjoy listening to your program is phenomenal. So that’s been a great joy and so artistically satisfying. A lot of guests appreciate that I have the performance background that I do, I’m not just a talk show interviewer, and they are really able to relate to a lively, artistic discussion.
Q: How do you balance the live performance aspect of your career with a full-time position in radio?
A: I won’t say that it’s easy, keeping all of the plates spinning in the air all at once, but performing is always going to be my deepest love and passion, so I love to keep that going. That said, this is the first time that I’ve returned to Ohio to do a real show. I’ve been living in New York City since the late 1990′s and this is the very first time that I’ve had the chance to return to the home base to perform, and it’s where I learned to sing, literally. So, it’s very exciting to be returning home for this first time to bring it around full circle. I also want to add that my very first exposures to New York City were on spring break trips. There were two spring break trips that were planned and curated as extracurricular things that you could do through my school, Dayton Christian, and the trip was curated by the arts department, so our art teacher, and the drama director, and others, they were the ones who chose, ‘okay, we’ll go to these Broadway shows, we’ll go to these art galleries, and this is what we will do on our trip to New York’ in addition to all the regular, touristy things. So, I was 15 years old, I was a sophomore at Dayton Christian, and I got the chance to go on this spring break trip, and I stepped off a 13-hour bus ride here into the middle of Times Square, and I just knew in my heart that this was where I was going to be. And I’m proud to say, that a bunch of those teachers are going to be at the show at the Fitton Center. So, I can’t wait to honor them because in many ways, I feel like I wouldn’t maybe even be talking to you from New York City today if it weren’t for them. They were my first exposure to New York City, and they fostered those dreams and that training, and that’s why I’m here. In 2019, I was able to perform on Broadway with Kristin Chenoweth, the Tony and Emmy-Award winning, beloved actress, so that was very exciting, and I’ve done several sold-out engagements at a venue here called 54 Below (Feinstein’s/54 Below,) which is one of the very popular cabaret rooms here in New York City. It’s under the old Studio 54, and that’s why it has the name 54 Below. I’ve performed the “National Anthem/The Star-Spangled Banner” at Fenway Park at one point. Right before I moved to New York, I lived in Boston, so I was able to sing the “National Anthem” there, which was a very exciting moment…So, I’ve always kept the passion for performance alive, even before I got the opportunity at Sirius XM, I was a full-time actor, and musician. I toured and did tons of productions. Sirius XM did change that, but I still love to keep those opportunities to perform going whenever I can.
Q: What can your fans expect from the Fitton Center performance? Will you be singing or telling stories?
A: I will be doing both of those things. I’m going to take some of the stories that are just incredible, kind of like I mentioned, my sense of awe and wonder at the way that this all went and being able to interact with so many of the people that we all look up to. So, I’m going to tell stories about meeting Barbara Streisand, one of my all-time vocal heroes, and getting to work with her, or getting to sit down with Ruth Bader Ginsburg at the Supreme Court, which was something that I did in January of 2020, right before the Coronavirus took over out lives. That was an amazing opportunity, before she passed. So, I’ll be telling some of those remarkable stories. Also, I’ll be paying homage to some of those teachers who were so influential, and who are planning to attend the show. I definitely want to honor them and recount their role in my life, as I mentioned how they were so much a part of me pursuing my dreams in New York City. And around some of those stories, I’m going to weave some of the songs that are inspired by some of those major moments, some of those great conversations, and artists that I’ve been able to work with. For instance, I worked with composer Andrew Lloyd Webber, so I’ll sing something of his and talk about interacting with him.
How to go
What: “The Julie James Show”
When: Sat., Mar. 26 at 7:30 p.m.
Where: The Fitton Center for Creative Arts, 101 S. Monument Ave., Hamilton
Cost: Tickets for the show are $29 for members; $37 for non-members. Tickets are available advance at the Fitton Center, or online.
More info: www.fittoncenter.org or (513) 863-8873 ext. 110.
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