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The SPARK Fast Five: Billy Stritch — Five Questions with the People Sparking the Hamptons
The SPARK Fast Five with Billy Stritch
Five questions with the people sparking the Hamptons.
The award-winning performer will be at LTV on July 18 with Klea Blackhurst for the Hamptons Summer Songbook Series.
Award-winning composer, arranger, vocalist and jazz pianist Billy Stritch — who was Liza Minnelli’s music director for 25 years and has worked with Tony Bennett, Christine Ebersole, Linda Lavin, Marilyn Maye and Linda Eder, among many others — is bringing his musical talents to the Hamptons.
Stritch is performing with acclaimed singer Klea Blackhurst in “Dreaming of a Song: The Music of Hoagy Carmichael” at LTV in Wainscott on Saturday, July 18. The performance is part of the Hamptons Summer Songbook by the Sea 2026 series, produced by Donna Rubin and Josh Gladstone.
We caught up with Stritch — who was born and raised in Texas, began playing piano at age 12 and now lives in New York City — for our SPARK Fast Five.
The SPARK Fast Five: Billy Stritch
1. You’ve performed with, recorded with and served as music director for legends — including Liza Minnelli for 25 years. What moments from that journey still inspire you, and what did you learn from Liza?
What I learned from Liza was to always surround yourself with the best creators you can because it only makes you look better. So I always try to use the best musicians and sing the best songs. She was always that way. She was so confident and secure in her own persona that she never felt it took anything away from her, and I loved that. She was totally right about it.
I also learned from her grace in front of the paparazzi. She was always so great at handling all of that and so wonderful with fans.
As for the moments that still inspire me, there are so many. We traveled the world together, and we had wonderful, romantic nights in Rio de Janeiro with some of Brazil’s greatest musicians — the parties and those intimate, insider experiences.
I also got to meet so many old Hollywood legends, including Gregory Peck, Audrey Hepburn, Lauren Bacall and Esther Williams. These great Golden Age stars aren’t with us anymore, and I met them all through Liza. She opened that whole world to me, and it was pretty fabulous, I gotta say.
2. What first sparked your love of music — and what sparks your creativity these days?
I can’t really recall a time when I didn’t respond to music, but I will say that watching and hearing those old songs on television while growing up — what we now call the Great American Songbook — especially on The Carol Burnett Show, is where I think I first heard Gershwin, Irving Berlin and all those wonderful movie songs. I just gravitated toward that kind of music, and it remains my absolute favorite.
It’s such a cliché to say they don’t write songs like that anymore, but the older I get and the more I perform them, the more I realize that’s true.
These songs continue to inspire me because the lyrics are so beautifully crafted and the music is so well honed and harmonically satisfying that I never get tired of it. Every time I perform them, I’m inspired. It’s so satisfying to share this music with audiences, to learn it and to sing it. It’s like a warm blanket I never want to get out of.
3. What songs or composers are your absolute favorites, and why?
I love Cy Coleman’s songs because they have such a great jazz flavor, so they really resonate with me. They also resonate on a personal level because Cy Coleman and I became friends. He was a fabulous jazz pianist, and I think he loved that I was a pianist, too. We really connected on that level, and he shared so much of his unpublished material with me. That was a very personal and wonderful relationship.
I always feel very lucky that I moved to New York in time to meet legendary people like Sammy Cahn, Burton Lane, Jule Styne and Fred Ebb. Working with Fred Ebb on Liza’s show — nobody made me laugh harder than Fred Ebb. He was just incredible to work with.
I also love Brazilian music. I’m a real sucker for a romantic bossa nova or samba, and I always try to include some of that in my solo shows. I think it’s so lush and beautiful. It’s transportive.
4. What makes this Hamptons show at LTV with Klea Blackhurst — featuring the music of Hoagy Carmichael — so special?
What makes this show special is that I think audiences are going to discover that Hoagy Carmichael wrote so many songs they already know but may not realize he wrote — songs like “Stardust,” “Skylark,” “The Nearness of You” and “Heart and Soul.” It’s amazing material.
What’s also so much fun is that I get to perform it with Klea, who has such an enthusiasm for the material and such an infectious, warm personality onstage. When you hear Klea tell the stories behind these songs, it’s incredibly entertaining because she’s such a gifted storyteller.
We always joke that we’re complete nerds when it comes to who wrote a song and how it came about. Sometimes I’m sitting at the piano listening to a story I’ve heard a hundred times, and it’s as if I’m hearing it for the first time because she’s so good at telling it.
I adore working with her, and I think our love of collaborating really comes through onstage. I think audiences will appreciate that as much as they appreciate the music.
5. Finish this sentence: The best thing about the Hamptons is …
The best thing about the Hamptons is that it’s like being in another country without having to leave. You don’t have to go far from New York to enjoy all of the richness and beautiful things it has to offer.
If You Go
Billy Stritch and Klea Blackhurst will perform “Dreaming of a Song: The Music of Hoagy Carmichael” on Saturday, July 18, at 7:30 p.m. at LTV, 75 Industrial Road, Wainscott.
Information and reservations: ltveh.org
