Concert Series: Grace McLean

Called “electrifying” by The Huffington Post and “phenomenal” by The New York Times, Grace McLean is a multi-hyphenate actress-singer-writer-teacher on the rise. In addition to performing on Broadway (Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812) and Off (New Group, MCC, LCT3, Public, La MaMa, Vineyard, among others), Grace also makes time for her acclaimed original music with her band Grace McLean & Them Apples. With an artistry that combines Regina Spektor’s quirkiness, Nellie McKay’s jazz sensibilities, Fiona Apple’s cutting introspection, Kimbra’s sass and Merrill Garbus of tUnE-yArDs‘ rhythm, McLean adds up to one beautiful weirdo. Manhattan User’s Guide writes, “this pop and jazz singer writes seriously infectious melodies with seriously antic lyrics. Her voice can raise the roof, or she can slide off a note and break your heart,” and Stephen Holden of the New York Times says “Ms. McLean’s voice [is] a flexible instrument with unexpected reserves of power…Behind her playful adventurousness lies a well of passion.” 

Grace received a 2021 Jonathan Larson Grant and is a Broadway Women’s Fund 2021 Woman to Watch. She is a Writer In Residence at Lincoln Center Theater where her first original musical IN THE GREEN was commissioned and produced, received a 2020 Richard Rodgers Award, and earned her a Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Musical.  Grace McLean & Them Apples headlined the Lincoln Center American Songbook in both 2015 and 2016, and Grace is the 2017 recipient of the Hunt Family Emerging Artist Award through Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.  The band toured Pakistan with the US State Department in 2015 and Grace traveled to Russia again with the State Department in 2018. She was a headlining performer and vocal instructor at the SingStrong a capella festivals in DC and Chicago in 2014 and again in New York in 2020 and she continues to teach voice privately in New York.