Adult Contemporary
Audra McDonald
Audra McDonald has appeared on the stage in both musicals and dramas. She maintains an active concert and recording career. McDonald has recorded several solo albums. Her first, the 1998 Way Back to Paradise, featured songs written by a new generation of musical theatre composers who had achieved varying degrees of prominence in the 1990s, particularly LaChiusa, Adam Guettel and Jason Robert Brown. Her next album, How Glory Goes (2000), combined both old and new works and included composers Harold Arlen, Leonard Bernstein and Jerome Kern. Her next album, Happy Songs (2002) was big band music from the 1920s through the 40s. Her fourth album, Build a Bridge (2006), features songs from jazz and pop. At the 2010 BCS National Championship Game, McDonald sang "America the Beautiful" for the sold-out stadium. In 2013, she released Go Back Home. Audra McDonald continues to be embraced by audiences everywhere.