* Bull Run Concert Series: Nellie McKay

4-3-2014

“Supremely gifted, charming, and darkly funny.” - Washington Post

Nellie McKay's music is as tuneful and clever as the best of the Great American Songbook, and she stretches her torchy, cabaret-style vocals to include rap, rock, and everything in-between. With virtually unlimited gifts as a singer, songwriter, actress, pianist, ukulele player, mimic, satirist and comedian, McKay “is at once Judy Garland, Diana Krall, Weird Al, and Jenny Lewis” (Theasy). Her already impressive list of achievements includingopening for Lou Reed at Carnegie Hall, performing on A Prairie Home Companion, duets with Eartha Kitt and Triumph The Insult Comic Dog, a role as Hilary Swank’s sister on the big screen, and five wildly-acclaimed albums of original music.

She has won a Theatre World Award for her portrayal of Polly Peachum in the Broadway production of "The Threepenny Opera" and performed onscreen in the film "PS I Love You," as well as writing original music for the Rob Reiner film "Rumor Has It" and contributing to the New York Times Book Review.  Her music has also been heard on the TV shows Weeds,Grey’s Anatomy, NCIS, Privileged and Nurse Jackie, and Nellie has appeared on numerous TV shows includingLate Show with David Letterman (with the Brooklyn Philharmonic), The View, Late Night with Conan O’Brien, Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, Live with Regis & Kelly and CBS Saturday Morning.  In 2010, the Chase Brock Experience produced a ballet of her third album, "Obligatory Villagers," while Nellie recently finished contributing to the soundtrack for the HBO series Boardwalk Empire.  
"Home Sweet Mobile Home" is McKay’s latest album of all-original material and features the musical wanderlust, lyrical playfulness and unique point of view that has characterized her music since her breakthrough debut "Get Away From Me."

“McKay’s virtually unlimited gifts as a singer, songwriter, actress, pianist, ukulele player, mimic, satirist and comedian into a show that is much deeper than its surface might suggest…In the most lighthearted way they evoke a heartless environment of social injustice in which people who fall through the cracks are invisible to everyone else” (New York Times)