Barbara Cook - Later Years

Later Years

After Harper's death in October 2004, Cook made the painful adjustment to new accompanists in solo shows like Tribute (a reference to Harper) and No One Is Alone that continued to receive acclaim; The New York Times wrote in 2005 that she was "at the top of her game.... Cook's voice is remarkably unchanged from 1958, when she won the Tony Award for playing Marian the Librarian in The Music Man. A few high notes aside, it is, eerily, as rich and clear as ever." In January 2006, Cook became the first female pop singer to be presented by the Metropolitan Opera in the company's more than one hundred year history. She presented a solo concert of Broadway show tunes and classic jazz standards, and was supported on a few numbers by guest singers Audra McDonald and Josh Groban. The concert was recorded and subsequently released on CD. On June 25, 2006, Cook was the special guest star of the Award Winning Gay Men's Chorus of Washington, D.C., celebrating GMCW's Silver Anniversary in a performance at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC.

Cook was the featured artist at the Arts! by George gala on September 29, 2007 at the Fairfax campus of George Mason University. On October 22, 2007, Cook sang at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts with the Fort Lauderdale Gay Men's Chorus in the chorus's concert entitled "An Evening With Barbara Cook". Upon completion of the concert, an almost full house greeted her with a round of "Happy Birthday" in honor of her impending 80th birthday, which, on December 2, 2007, she celebrated belatedly in the UK with a concert at the Coliseum Theatre in London's West End.

As she entered her ninth decade, Cook performed in two sold-out concerts with the New York Philharmonic at Lincoln Center in 2007. The New York Times reviewer wrote that Cook is "a performer spreading the gospel of simplicity, self-reliance and truth" who is "never glib" and summoning adjectives such as "astonishing" and "transcendent," concluding that she sings with "a tenderness and honesty that could break your heart and mend it all at once."

In June 2008, Cook appeared in Strictly Gershwin at the Royal Albert Hall in London, England with the full company of English National Ballet. She appeared with the Ulster Orchestra as the Closing Concert of the Ulster Bank Belfast Festival at Queen's at the Waterfront Hall in Belfast on October 31, 2008. Her other 2008 appearances included concerts in Chicago, West Palm Beach and San Francisco.

In 2009, she performed with the Princeton Symphony, Detroit Symphony, and gave concerts in Boca Raton, Florida and at the McCarter Theatre in Princeton. She has performed in a cabaret show at Feinsteins at the Regency (New York City) which opened in April 2009.

Cook returned to Broadway in 2010 in the Roundabout Theatre's Stephen Sondheim revue "Sondheim on Sondheim", created and directed by long-time Sondheim collaborator James Lapine, at Studio 54. She starred opposite Vanessa L. Williams and Tom Wopat. Cook was nominated for a Tony Award for her performance in the category of Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Musical. On April 12, 2011, Cook appeared with James Taylor, Bette Midler and Sting, at Carnegie Hall for a gala called "Celebrating 120 Years of Carnegie Hall".

Cook was named an honoree at the 2011 Kennedy Center Honors, held on December 4, 2011 (the ceremony was broadcast on CBS on December 27, 2011). Performers paying tribute to Cook on that occasion included Matthew Broderick, Sarah Jessica Parker, Patti LuPone, Glenn Close, Kelli O'Hara, Rebecca Luker, Sutton Foster, Laura Osnes, Anna Christy, and Audra McDonald.