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Raindrops on roses, whiskers on kittens, bright, snappy lyrics with which I am smitten.
Broadway songs that everyone sings, these are a few of my favorite things.
Honestly, doesn’t everyone know the lyrics to at least one song from the “Sound of Music?”
Andy Einhorn probably knows them all. He’s the music supervisor for the “The Sound of Music” Broadway tour presented by Ensemble Arts Philly at the Academy of Music March 31 through April 5.
“Rodgers and Hammerstein – it was their final collaboration. They were at the top of the game when they wrote the show,” Einhorn said. “I think Rodgers and Hammerstein spoke to the heart. Their music was popular — and populist.”
Set in Austria in 1939 as the Nazis were growing in strength and influence, the original Broadway “Sound of Music” opened in 1959. In 1965, Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer starred in the movie version which won five Academy Awards, including best picture.
The music was largely the same in both the stage and movie versions, although the movie omitted two songs from the stage show that Einhorn and the creative team have brought back into the touring company production.
“Those two songs are politically entrenched in what was happening in the world at the moment of the setting of the show,” Einhorn said. “They were removed from the movie, making [the movie] more populist.”
Both songs, “How Can Love Survive?” in the first act and “No Way To Stop It” at the start of the second act, alluded to the coming Nazi threat.
“You want to play down those elements when you are making a film that’s the `raindrops on roses’ version,” Einhorn said. “I think the stage version gives [the audience] a greater sense of understanding of why the family makes the decisions it makes.”
The actors, Einhorn said, “are telling a very compelling and prescient story. I think there’s a certain part of the ‘Sound of Music’ that feels terribly relevant in our country and in how the world is.”
So, what does a music supervisor do?
“Most of my job was in the build of the show, the rehearsal process, and helping shape the orchestration,” Einhorn said. It not only involves orchestrating the songs, but also the music played by the 15-member orchestra during the transition times and scene changes.
“At this point, my job is a maintenance job,” he said. “Any time we have new cast members, I attend auditions. I oversee the rehearsals. Every three to four months I come out to visit the tour just to check on it.”
“Shows are living, breathing organisms. They change night to night and because of the fact they are changing venues every week or two weeks, it can be a taxing job for the performers and the musicians.”
For this show, the most intense part for Einhorn was in August rehearsals, ahead of the tour opening in September.
Before that, there was the decision to include the two songs among other issues, including smaller things an audience might miss.
For example, during Maria’s wedding to Captain von Trapp, Einhorn worked to develop a blended version of six once separate pieces of music.
“You are trying to weave together the action with the music to make the experience feel grander and streamlined,” he said. “We’re using music to catapult the story and make it feel breezier as it were. We’re not changing the DNA, just slightly rearranging it.
“It’s part of why, when you are reexamining the piece, your job is to understand the context in which it was written in 1959 and how to present it for an audience in 2026,” Einhorn said. “The world has evolved and our responsibility in harkening something from the past is to honor it and push it forward.”
The show travels with five musicians – a conductor, two keyboard players, a lead trumpeter, and a concert master who plays the violin. In each city, a contractor works through a musicians’ union to hire 10 more musicians with “a classical sensibility,” Einhorn said. The show needs to recruit three woodwind players, another trumpeter, a trombonist, a cellist, a bass violinist, another violinist and a percussionist.
Finding musicians to play is never a problem, Einhorn said. “It’s a beautiful score. When you have a show like the ‘Sound of Music,’ players enjoy the actual composition of the music. It makes it a valuable call that you want to get.”
Einhorn won’t be visiting the show in Philadelphia, but he has connections here (and no, not related to Ira Einhorn).
Andy Einhorn’s mother is from Philadelphia and Einhorn has, on several occasions, conducted the Philadelphia Orchestra. In 2022, it was for a staged concert version of “Fiddler on the Roof.”
What was it like to conduct the orchestra here?
“I would describe it like driving a Rolls Royce,” Einhorn said. “They are one of the top five orchestras in the country. There’s an ease in guest conducting. You’re a guest and a leader at the same time. There’s a beautiful communing and give and take. You understand that you are a guest and they are respecting me as a leader. We are all coming together as trained studied musicians aiming for the best possible result. That’s the best symbiosis in those movements.”
Einhorn has been involved in many projects and is currently busy with a “Dream Girls” revival set to open on Broadway in the fall. He teaches in The Julliard School’s opera program, working on bringing musical theater into the curriculum.
As for “Sound of Music,” Einhorn refuses to say which of the songs is his favorite.
“They are all my children. It’s hard to have a favorite,” he said. “They are all a few of my favorite things.”
Even if Einhorn can’t or won’t pick a favorite song, he does pick his most favorite show — the “Sound of Music.”
“In my 20 years, it’s what I’m most proud of,” he said. “It’s beautiful and incredibly moving. Hearing the story today is a gentle reminder of keeping our eyes open and being vigilant in the world and not to lose our individuality and joy in living.”
“The Sound of Music,” March 31-April 5, Ensemble Arts Philly at the Academy of Music, 240 S. Broad St., Phila. 215-893-1999
