OUT NOW | Australian Discovery Orchestra's "16 Stories" Features Musical Theater Premieres

A new album from the Australian Discovery Orchestra (ADO), entitled "16 Stories," sees the premiere of sixteen previously-unheard musical theater songs. The ADO, which is renowned for its innovative programming, selected the sixteen tracks by asking sixteen prominent musical theater composers to submit a song they had written which was never released.

The composers involved are Greg Nabours, Adam Gwon, Joel Evans and Adryan Russ, Peter Mills, Kooman and Dimond, Nikko Benson, Andre Catrini, Sam Willmott and Marcus Stevens, Oliver Houser, Stephen Weiner and Peter Kellogg, Jess Newman, Kevin Purcell and Victor Kazan, Alan Schmuckler, Craig Christie, Drew Lane, and Joe Chindamo and Steve Vizard. The recording is directed by the ADO's conductor, Kevin Purcell.

"16 Stories is an album that sets out to showcase the extraordinary influence that American musical theatre has globally," Purcell said. "The audience for contemporary musical theatre is huge when you look at the numbers across the combined streaming services. Listeners also love singing the songs from contemporary musicals as they often relate directly to the experience of their own lives, and that is true of the songs on this record."

The album is now available on Spotify, Apple Music, and iTunes, and the ADO is releasing video clips of each individual song on their Facebook page. You can hear Anoushka Taylor's performance of the song "Pretty Little Things" below.