He’s known for many roles, especially Jean
ValJean from the musical Les Miserables. He was also recently featured on PBS in the musical A Tale of Two Cities.
Mark McVey and his wife,
singer Christy Tarr-McVey, will perform with the West Virginia Symphony this
weekend in Charleston.
McVey says that
the focus of their program will be love and inspiration: “We are
going to, since it’s the 12th and the 13th, leading right
up to that wonderful Hallmark holiday, we’re going to do a lot of love songs,
written by my favorite composers -- the masters from the 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s – guys
that wrote for Broadway.
"And then we’re
going to incorporate some of the newer composers’ music as well and do some
things from Marvin Hamlisch, who I have a really nice relationship with and do
some of his love songs, like “The Way we Were” and “Ice Castles.”
McVey’s connection to
Hamlisch dates back to early in his musical career:
“One of the first
professional shows I ever did was a Marvin Hamlisch show, “They’re Playing Our
Song,” and I did it at the Mountaineer Dinner Theater in Winfield, West Virginia, and I don’t know if the place is there or not
anymore. And it gave me an intro to the
type of music that he does, which is very introspective.
McVey especially feels
passionate about one of the Hamlisch songs that he’ll perform with the symphony:
“One Song” – a song that I’ve sung a number of times that I’ve come home, and
it’s really just an anthem to remind each other that we are brothers and
sisters under the sun, it doesn’t matter what color our skin is, or what
religious beliefs we have, or anything, none of that really matters -- we’re
all just children of God and we’re all in this together, and we have to figure
out how to do it. It’s a wonderful song.”
With two professional musicians
in the family, McVey is very conscious of balancing their performing and
recording schedules with raising their two young daughters. But he continues to value the connections he
makes through music:
“I’m a small
fish in a big pond up here in New York. Every now and then, I get fished out and get chosen
to do a piece, then I give it my all.
And then I go back, and then I get fished out to do something else. And I just pray every day that I get to
continue doing this. These are the gifts
that I was given, and I want to use them every day and express who I am through
the music that is chosen.”
Mark McVey sings with the WV Symphony
February 12 and 13 at 8pm
at the Clay
Center
in Charleston.