Pianist Patti Loach teams with new partner for Toronto cabaret show

May 30, 2012

Respected Toronto pianist Patti Loach, well known for her collaborations with opera singer Jean Stilwell, has announced a night of cabaret at the Lower Ossington Theatre's cabaret space with a new partner – singer Lindsay Sutherland Boal.

Billed as “Conversations at 3 a.m.”, the show is set for Saturday June 9.

Loach, a comely 53-year-old, has been playing the piano since she was six. In addition to loving classical music, she’s a devotee of the American Songbook, and musical theatre in general.

Her recordings, “Carmen UnZipped” and “Pull Me Through”, as well as her work in shows like "The Shopping Cart of Love" (with Patricia Zentilli), "The Picture of Happiness" (with Brad Hampton), and the new show with Sutherland Boal, reflects these interests.

Loach has written five shows including the new “What Was I Saying?”, as well as "Carmen UnZipped" which she has performed around the world with opera and cabaret diva Jean Stilwell.

Loach met Sutherland Boal a year ago when the latter was in Toronto performing her one-woman show PURELY CABARET at the Fringe Festival. Right away, Loach says, she was intrigued by the singer's extensive knowledge of the music of the Weimar Republic – she studied kabarett in Germany – and charmed by her “quirky, sexy, funny personality.”

The two of them set about studying music Sutherland Boal had come across at the Yale Cabaret Conference.

“One song led to another and this show, ‘Conversations at 3 a.m.’, is the culmination of a year of Wednesday afternoons, sharing stories and music, here at the piano in my kitchen,” says Loach.

About the music, Loach says:

“We've found some gorgeous ballads ('Dublin', and 'The Lies of Handsome Men'). Lindsay is singing some gorgeously wistful songs in German and English from her specific area of expertise: the Weimar republic. And since my newest composer-obsession is with the insanely talented and outrageously funny Ray Jessel, we're performing two of his songs, including 'I Think About Sex'.”