Songs From the Heart

Steve Martin laughs heartily throughout an interview about the Young@Heart Chorus. He starts off by playfully asking an interviewer, "What’s New Brunswick all about?" When he's told New Brunswick is a great city in New Jersey with terrific theater, restaurants and museums, he chuckles and says, "OK, if you say so."

The mention of Rutgers starts to convince him. 

"Now you’re talking,” he says. “We got a good football player from Rutgers up here in New England, he’s a defensive back.” he says, presumably in reference to Patriots Pro Bowl cornerback Devin McCourty, who was drafted out of Rutgers in 2010. "Keep knocking them out, we’ll take them."

Martin (no relation to the famous writer and actor) will see New Brunswick for himself when the Young@Heart Chorus takes stage at the on Oct. 16 with their show titled “Young@Heart Alive and Well” in a concert presented by Anshe Emeth Memorial Temple, to raise money for social work and programming.

Young@Heart is no regular chorus, as anyone who saw “Young@Heart,” the 2007 documentary about the group knows. It consists of about 30 singers from New England, ranging in age from their early 70s to late 80s.

And they sing rock, and not easy listening, soft rock. The State Theatre show, for example, will include interpretations of songs by artists like the Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, Michael Jackson, the Flaming Lips and Talking Heads.

The movie showed the group rehearsing and performing songs like James Brown’s “I Feel Good” and most memorably, “Yes We Can Can,” recorded by the Pointer Sisters. Some songs from the movie will be performed in New Brunswick, but Bob Cilman, the chorus’ director, says the group has moved onto other things in the five years since.

Before the movie, Young@Heart had a following in Europe and the documentary actually got its starts on British television. It was then picked up for distribution by Fox Searchlight and was a critical and box office success.

The movie is touching and often funny, but for Cilman and the singers, Young@Heart is serious stuff. Cilman says there's always a concern that people might perceive the chorus as something that's cute or sweet, but that he was confident the filmmakers understood what Young@Heart does.

"I know that what we’re doing, it sounds like a gimmick if you try to explain it, but when you’re confronted by it, you realize it’s very real," he says. "And I think the movie helped make that argument for us that this is something worth listening to, that there’s something very serious being done here. I don’t think the film for a minute makes fun of the people, I don’t think there’s anything we do that makes fun of the people, I think it’s all about the love of making something special.”

Martin says he had no idea what songs Young@Heart performed when he auditioned by singing "I Could Have Danced all Night" form My Fair Lady.

"I thought it would exhibit my vocal range,” he says. “I sang the song and Bob said, ‘Take a seat. By the way, we don’t do Broadway.’ He then offered to sing something in Italian, and was told it was all rock 'n’ roll.

Martin says the chorus works from Cilman’s arrangements, without sheet music, and that he doesn’t listen to the original recordings of these songs because of how the music drowns out the lyrics.

"Or the singer never learned English in the third grade, you know? His elocution or his ability to speak the English language in song left something to be desired,” Martin says with a laugh. “But once you get into the messages and the storylines in these songs, the rock ‘n roll songs that we do, there are some fantastic stories, and of course we love it."

This concert is Young@Heart's first in New Jersey, and has a special meaning for Cilman, because he and Anshe Emeth Memorial’s Rabbi Bennett F. Miller are cousins.

Cilman says that what his singers do is art and that Young@Heart concerts are about creating emotional experiences for audiences. 

"The fact that they’re old adds to the experience, I think,” he says. “They’ve had a lot of years and they’re very interesting to look at. In America we don’t celebrate age very much, we celebrate youth. Youth is worshiped in this country. The fact is that older people are so interesting and people just haven’t seen enough of them in a position of power. And this is a very powerful position these people are in."

In addition to enjoying performing, Martin takes pleasure in how the group inspires people. Young people might encourage their grandparents to try something new and older people may be inspired to take up a new hobby, or return to an old one.

Martin says Young@Heart’s singers are a bunch of adrenaline junkies,” which ups the energy level for the singers, and the audience. 

"The entertainment value is outstanding, people start stomping their feet, dancing the aisles and giving us standing O’s and all that,” he says. “That means we’ve done something good for the audience."

Young@Heart will perform at 3 p.m. Oct. 16 at the State Theatre, 15 Livingston Ave. Tickets cost $25 to $118.

For tickets and information, go to StateTheatreNJ.org or go to 732-246-7469.