Steve Ross
Artist Bio
Updated, October, 2005
Steve Ross rose to fame as a cabaret entertainer during his lengthy sojourns at New York's fabled Algonquin Hotel and Ted Hook's Backstage in the late 1970's. He has spent the ensuing decades singing and playing in smart clubs and swank parties all over the world. The Ritz in London, the Crillon in Paris and the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo, in addition to festivals in Hong Kong, Perth and Spoleto - these are but highlights of Steve's appearances on six continents.
On the air-waves Steve has been the performer/host for radio series for both the BBc and National Public Radio. In 1992 he was voted outstanding singer-instrumentalist by the Manhattan Association of Cabarets. Also in that year Steve made his Off-Broadway debut in his own tribute to Fred Astaire, I WON'T DANCE. He continues to tour in solo concerts, master classes, theatrical engagements and symphonic Pops appearances.
During the 90's, Steve was presented by Barry Mishon, co-starring with Sheridan Morley and Patricia Hodge at London's Pizza on the Park in musical salutes to Noel Coward, Gertrude Lawrence, Jack Buchanan and other transatlantic legends. In 1997 he made his Broadway debut in the acclaimed revival of Noel Coward's PRESENT LAUGHTER, performing at the keyboard as well as portraying the role of Fred, the Cockney valet opposite Frank Langella. In 1996, he hosted and performed in HOLLYWOOD ON THE HUDSON, a delightful outdoor series at Battery Park in Manhattan and appeared with the brilliant stride pianist Judy Carmichyael in COLE PORTER MEETS FATS WALLER at the Tavern on the Green in Central Park. July of 1997 found Steve atop the city at RAINBOW & STARS (Rockefeller Center)in a modified version of I WON'T DANCE, directed by Susan Claassen and featuring an ensemble of New York's most talented singer/performers. Stephen Holden of the New York Times hailed Steve as "...the suavest of all male cabaret cabaret performers."
Following that, a fully staged theatrical production of I WON'T DANCE ran for ten weeks at the Ordway theater in St. Paul, MN; excerpts were featured on Garrison Keillor's PRAIRIE HOME COMPANION, the nationally syndicated APR radio program. Steve then returned for his fourth visit to St. Louis' Grandel THeater to present STEVE ROSS IN HOLLYWOOD and HOORAY FOR LOVE. The Fall of 1998 found Steve and co-star Karen Murphy in a new show for Peter Ligeti's In Performance Series at New York's Kaufman Theatre, entitled L'AMOUR, THE MERRIER."
In 1999, at the FIREBIRD CAFE, Steve presented SET TO MUSIC: STEVE ROSS CELEBRATES NOEL COWARD. Before the year was out, he participated in similar Coward centenary celebrations at Carnegie Hall and Savoy Theatre in London. In the summer of 1999 Steve returned to the famous St. Louis MUNY (seating 12,000) to star in the THE MUNY GOES BRITISH, directed by Paul Blake.
Highlighes of 2000 included several appearances in Palm Beach, including one at the famous Colony Hotel, preferred by people such as Porter and Coward on their trips south.
He and Judy brought STRIDE WITH STYLE to Hollytwood's CINEGRILL in July and then to the QEII. In August of that year Steve made his debut at the PLUSH ROOM in San Franciso. The San Franciso Chronicle wrote: "Attending a Ross performance is like opening a treasure chest of great, often rare, songs. No one performing today is his equal. They just don't make 'em like this anymore."
Then it was his annual performace at the Hammer Auditorium in Washington's prestigious Corcoran Gallery of Art, followed by two weeks at the glamorous new BARETTOS in Sao Paulo and shows for the premiere season of the new cabaret space connected with the Austin (TX) Music Theatre. 2002 took Steve back to the Plush Room and to three mid-Western cities - Indianapolis, Detroit and Cincinnati, where he perfomed as part of an exciting new symphonic program called THE POPS GOES BRITISH, under the baton of the celebrated conductor, Jack Everly.
In August, Steve headed down to Santa Fe to perform his Porter and Rodgers shows at Santa Fe Stages, returning for three performances at the fabled Caramoor Music Festival in New York.
Then he flew south to Brazil for two weeks at BARETTOS in Sao Paulo and one week at MISTURA FINA in Rio de Janeiro, where he was hailed as "the cabaret master of New York!"
In November of 2002, Steve opened to rave reviews at the newly designed swank supper club at the Stanhope Park Hyatt Hotel on Fifth Ave. in Manhattan. In January of 2003 he joined forces with Broadway legend Peter Howard and the peerless society pianist Peter Mintun for special two-piano engagements at that hotel, where he returned in the Spring with AN AMERICAN IN PARIS. In June of 2003, Steve had the pleasure of returning for the first time in many years to Australia where he took pleasure in his role as musical ambassador to venues in Sydney, Canberra, Adelaide and Melbourne - and then return engagements in Sao Paulo and Rio.
His show, MY MANHATTAN (Stanhope Park Hyatt, Autumn, 2003 prompted Stephen Holden of the New York Times to call him "...the quintessence of old-style urbanity." He took that show to Pizza on the Park in February of 2004. In the course of this engagement he performed a special salute to Noel Coward for the Noel Coward Society.
Steve took his fourth Stanhope show, RHYTHMM AND ROMANCE on a four city tour of Australia in June of 2004, where one critic dubbed him, "A master showman."
Steve returned to the New York theatre scene in November of that year with a reprise of his two-piano Fred Astaire show - this time for a five- week fun at one of the most desirable of the newer off-Broadway venues, 59 East 59th St.
In the first part of 2005, Steve made a return to the Pizza on the Park and then gave two highly successful illustrated (by song) lectures at the Metropolitan Museum of Art - one on the songs of Noel Coward, the other on the songs of Jerome Kern. This was followed by an appearance at a special event for the Eighth International Art Deco Congress - a party in the lobby of the Chrysler Building on the 75th anniversary of the opening of that remarkable edifice.
He has just returned from performing at the glamorous Copacabana Palace Hotel in Rio de Janeiro as well as opening the Cabaret Convention at Jazz at Lincoln Center's Rose Hall.
Reviews and Quotes
"The suavest of all male cabaret perforemers."
- The New York Times
"The smoothest cabaret act in the world."
- The London Times
"No one performing today is his equal. They just don't make 'em like this anymore."
- Philip Elwood, San Francisco Chronicle
"The personification of the spirit of Cole Porter."
- The New Yorker
"Ross is a smoothly appealing light baritone and a pianist of nuance and flourish. Approaching his repertoire with a fierce dedication to a song's intent, he never toys with an original lyric. He sings them they way they were written; the polish comes in his keenly structured phrasing."
- Robert L. Daniels, Variety
"Steve Ross is an American cabaret treasure..."
-The Siegels’ Column, Manhattan
Specialties
Soloist - instrumental & vocal
Genre
cabaret broadway american popular standards