Jersey Boys orchestrator hosts library talk

Steven Orich, 67, Valley Stream native and Grammy-winning composer for the Broadway hit “Jersey Boys” cast album virtually visited his hometown on March 30 for the Henry Waldinger Memorial Library “Valley Stream to Broadway” program. The program was the first in a three-part series in “Celebrating Valley Stream through the Arts – Year 3,” which is being made possible with funds from the New York State Decentralization Program, a grant program of the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Governor of New York State and the New York State Legislature and administered by the Huntington Arts Council. It was through these art and cultural institutions that this “was made possible” said library director Mamie Eng.

Orich started playing the piano at eight years old and has never looked back. He told Valley Streamers tuning in to the library’s Zoom that he’s “always felt a very strong connection to music, especially when it’s connected to the theater…My mom always loved the theater. We used to go to Westbury Music Fair and Jones Beach Theater every summer and that was my first exposure to the real theater.”

These experiences would define the course of his life, starting out by playing at Central High School and directing shows at summer camps for four years.

At Central, the theater department spared no expense in exposing the youth to various shows, some out of state like at the Shakespeare Festival in Connecticut where Orich and his peers saw Othello and Midsummer Night’s Dream. This formative period in his life would “lead the groundwork for everything that I’ve done,” Orich said.

He played in the school showing of Cabaret and went out on trips to veterans’ hospitals, where his teacher had connections. There he played piano mostly in the amputee wards where returning Vietnam veterans listened to the jazzy, upbeat tunes. Here he learned he “liked being involved in actual production,” and took all the knowledge he learned to Stony Brook University, where he studied musical composition and started his own theater group.

He then moved to New York City to work on “Potholes” an off-Broadway musical, which became a turning point in Orich’s life. The composer said the original orchestrations were terrible and, confiding in him, asked him to redo them. He did, writing them at night when he could get a chance and through the process realized arranging was something he was good at and enjoyed.

He played the keyboard during the Broadway production of “Baby” but felt disillusioned after many nights of playing the exact piano keys over and over again. It was in this moment of creative  uncertainty that an old friend from New York called him, asking him to embark on an intensive project to orchestrate a new musical at La Jolla Playhouse. However, Orich’s initial five-week stint soon turned into four months of sold-out performances for what would become the critically acclaimed show “Jersey Boys.”

“We sold 500,000 copies, got a gold record, then next year sold 1 million and got a platinum record, then won the Grammy for ‘Best Show Album,’ and was nominated for ‘Best Orchestrations’ at the Tony Awards...The show itself won four Tony Awards,” he told the amazed audience.

Orich experienced one of the highlights of his career at Radio City Music Hall where he was nominated for the Tony Award for “Best Orchestrations, ” and “Jersey Boys” took “Best Musical.”  He was standing on stage with the cast and crew in the same music hall where he first heard a live 80-piece symphony orchestra playing for a “Mary Poppins” show. Showing a video for the audience of his moment on stage with the cast and crew he said even now he “still get[s] very choked up every time I see that.”

The win gave entertainment lovers the “Jersey Boys” fever.

“Every city wanted their own Jersey Boys,” Orich stated, saying the musical spread to London, Las Vegas, Australia, Chicago, and other international locations. “Almost 100,000 people saw the show live around the world every week…and 17 years later [there are] still four companies doing the show every night,” Orich added.

This momentous win opened more doors for him, including playing piano and arranging for the David Letterman Show Band, American Idol, the Tonight Show Band, the Tony Awards three times, the Marine Corp Band at the White House, and an eight-minute medley for the National Symphony that was played on the Capital Lawn for the Fourth of July. With live theater ramping back up with fewer restrictions, Orich was happy to announce a few new projects coming up. Check the website for updates for upcoming events at https://steveorich.com/.