Steve Ross has been a fixture of the cabaret community in Manhattan for over forty years. He was born “forty-five minutes from Broadway” in New Rochelle, NY, and was raised in Washington, DC with an opera-loving father and a mother who played on the piano the songs of Gershwin, Porter and Irving Berlin. His first major job in New York was as a successful singer/pianist at the now famous piano bar Ted Hook’s Backstage.
In 1981 he re-opened the legendary Oak Room at Manhattan’s famed Hotel Algonquin where he held forth off and on for more than 15 years. He has appeared on Broadway in Noel Coward’s Present Laughter and off-Broadway in his tribute to Fred Astaire entitled I Won’t Dance. Internationally, he has performed in London, Paris, Tokyo, Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Melbourne and Sydney as well as cabarets and theatres across America and on the high seas. He’s hosted programs on the BBC and New York Public Radio and was on the Concerts and Lectures roster at the Metropolitan Museum of Art for eight years. He co-starred with KT Sullivan in Love, Noel: the Letters and Songs of Noel Coward - summer of 2019 at the Irish Repertory Theatre) His last show at the Algonquin, Puttin’ on the Ritz – the Songs of Fred Astaire, prompted Stephen Holden of the New York Times to describe Steve as “the personification of the bygone dream world that his music summons.”
Steve Ross has delighted and beguiled international audience for decades. Although he has performed in huge out-of-door venues (the St. Lous Muny Opera) and on theatre stages (Present Laughter - Broadway; I Won't Dance - Off-Broadway and on tour) he is equally successful in bringing his unique brand of Manhattan sophistication to cabarets and intimate events all over the world - from the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo to the RItz hotels in London and Paris and from parties for Revlon to special evenings for Christies. The Transatlantic Songbook is alive and well in the hands of this elegant and seasoned performer who turns every evening into an exciting Cafe Society event.
AWARDS
Lifetime Achievement (National Arts Club); New School Film-Maker Series Special Award; Manhattan NiteLife Award; Manhattan Association of Cabarets Lifetime Achievement Award
BENEFITS AND FUNDRAISERS
Hearts of the World Merkin Hall (NYC); Vocal Ease (NYC); Roundabout Theatre Co. Metropolitan Museum of Art (NYC); Santa Fe Opera; Benefit performance Taj Hotel, Colombo, Sri Lanka
SPECIAL EVENTS
Yale Alumni Celebration, Class of '45; The Morgan Library - Retirement Party, Charles Pierce the Morgan Library; Columbus Club Benefit for Charter Schools
FESTIVALS
Queens Festival (Belfast); Spoleto Festival (Charleston, SC); Hong Kong Arts Festival; Caramoor Festival (New York); Thames Festival (UK); Jerusalem International Chamber Music Festival ; The World Congress of Art Deco, Rio de Janeiro; Perth Theatre Festival, Australia; Adelaide Cabaret Festival Australia); Melbourne international Cabaret Festival (Australia); Chicago Humanities Festival; Cole Porter Festival (Provincetown, MA); Cole Porter Festival (Peru, IN); Midsummer Night's swing
THEATRES AND AUDITORIUMS
Broadway Present Laughter; Off-Broadway and tour I Won’t Dance – Steve Ross Sings Fred Astaire; L’Amour, the Merrier!co-starring Karen Murphy; St. The Muny Goes British; The Muny Goes Hollywood (St. Louis Muny Opera); Boccacio Arena Stage (Washington, DC); Jermyn Street Theatre (London); The Palace (Stamford, Ct); Museum of Performance and Design (San Francisco); State Theatre (Melbourne); Sydney Town Hall (Sydney); 59 East 59 (NYC); YMCA, Jerusalem; Rose Hall, The Allen Room (Lincoln Center, NYC); The Sheldon (St. Louis); Love, Noel (Irish Repertory Theatre, New York)
RADIO
New York Cabaret Nights (NPR, two seasons, 26 episodes); BBC cabaret series with prominent guest stars; Garison Keilor’s Prairie Home Companion -- guest appearance
HOTELS
London Ritz; Paris Ritz; Hotel Crillon (Paris); Hotel Algonquin (NYC); Buckingham Place, Galle, Sri Lanka; Hotel Cipriani (Venice); Stanhope Park Hyatt (NYC); Savoy Hotel (London); St. Regis Hotel (NYC); Aman Grand Canal, (Venice); Hotel Pellicano, Porto Ercole (Italy)
PERFORMING ARTS CENTERS
The Kravis Center, West Palm Beach, FL; Saratoga Performing Arts Center, New York; Annenberg Center, Palm Springs
CLUBS AND CABARETS
Birdland (NYC); Iridium Jazz Club (NYC); Café Sabarsky Neue Galerie (NYC); Rainbow and Stars (NYC); Tavern on the Green (NYC); Everglades Club (Palm Beach); Corcoran Gallery of Art (Washington, DC); Rio Country Club (Rio de Janeiro); Santa Fe Stages; Tucson Sizzling Summer Series; Nikko’s (San Francisco); The Plush Room (San Francisco) Pizza on the Park, Crazy Coqs -London; Colony Hotel, Palm Beach; Le Chat Noir New Orleans; Laurie Beechman Theatre (NYC)
VENUES
Carnegie Hall (NYC); The Town Hall (NYC); Bruno Walter Auditorium, Lincoln Center Library for the Performing Arts; Lyrics and Lyricists, 92nd St. YMHA (NYC); Corcoran Gallery of Art (Washington, DC) ; The Harvard Club; The Yale Club; the Harmonie Club, The Princeton Club; The Knickerbocker Club, the University Club; The Players Club (NYC); Feinstein's 54 Below Sondheim Unplugged.
LECTURE & PERFORMANCE
Eight years on the Concert/Lectures Bureau of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (NYC)
MASTER CLASSES
Royal Academy of Music (London); NYU (New York); Georgetown University (DC); Catholic University (DC); New South Wales Institute of Dramatic Art (Sydney, Australia); Chapel-Off-Chapel (Melbourne, Australia), 202917-2918 New York City
BIG BAND and ORCHESTRA: Indianapolis, Cincinnati and Detroit Pops The Pops Goes British, Jack Everle conductor; The Cole Porter Concert The Wheeling Symphony, The Roanoke Symphony, the Yale Concert Band; Midsummer Night's Swing (Lincoln Center)
ON THE HIGH SEAS
QEII, Regent Seven Seas Voyager, Sea Cloud II