Video: Darryn de Souza Is Bringing Broadway Back to Brampton

Welcome to

Welcome to Backstage. Welcome to Backstage with Richard Ridge

Brampton on stage in Ontario continues their season with This Is Brampton, Reimagined, a concert

curated by Darren D'Souza, which will take place at the Rose on October 18th at 8 p.m

Darren has shared the stage performing alongside such icons as Celine Dion and Stevie Wonder

and performing for world leaders like Barack and Michelle Obama. Please welcome my guest award-winning music director, band leader, and performer Darren DeSouza

Thanks, Richard. Thanks for having me. It's an honor to be here. Well, first of all, how are you and where are you

Well, I'm in Canada. I'm in Ontario, and I am doing wonderful

It's been a wonderful season here. We've had tons of sun, and us Canadians adore the summer, because we know what's coming

as you in New York know as well. So we cherish the sun when it's here, and we've had lots of it this summer

So I'm in Ontario working away, building things, and looking for the next stage of my career

as I work through these rebuilding times, and I'm happy to be here doing it

Oh, I love it. You're about to kick off. This is Brampton, reimagined, a theater concert

curated by yourself. How excited are you? Oh, my gosh. You know, one of my favorite things to do

is to bring theater to the people around me in my community

And I was lucky as a young person to have theater thrust upon me

I went to a school for music from grade three, and I sort of came up with music right

around me. Sometimes it was forced upon me. And I'm thankful now, though, as we all know

sometimes we look at our parents and kind of go, oh, why did you force me to do that? So as I came

up through it, I always had wonderful people around me. And as I became a professional in this

industry, I found that I was inspired by those that I surrounded myself with. And so I conceived

this idea because in Brampton, theater is a part of the culture, and we want to bring opportunity

to the community to see what happens. You know, Toronto is a wonderful

landing hotspot for theater. Things have opened here, ragtime, and mega musicals have lived here for years

And so theater is part of Toronto's core. And so the cities around it, we try to make sure that

we bring all that wonderful talent, that culture, all the wonderful concepts that come with

theater. We try to make sure that we bring them out of Toronto and into the suburbs. And so

Brampton has this wonderful program where they give me the space and the way, the means to

to bring this talent to those people. And so I've done these concert a few times, and I get to bring

people that I adore. It's actually a wonderful excuse to call voices and talents that I am just in love

with. So I take the opportunity, and I bring people in. This time I have wonderful performers

Robert Ball, who's a staple in and such a talent in Canada, Paige Foskitt, and new up-and-comer

EVO tool, and myself, of course, holding them together. And then when I can, I kind of add myself

because I love to sing. So I bring them in and we bring music that we've always known

music that maybe we've never heard, and music that hasn't really had a chance to see the

light of day. And I bring all of that around. And if it's a really well-known song

it has a wonderful story or a lesson that's built in. And so I love to take the challenge

of bringing a song to people and maybe reimagining the way that it can be performed

Some stuff was written in a time when a specific type of music was at the forefell

front and the melody may be golden, but it may be ripe for reimagining. And so I take voices

I see what they have to offer as a style, as a talent, as a soul, and I try and meet them with the

songs that we choose. So it's a really fun thing to take music, wrap it around into a new snowball

and then see how it throws. So you curate this concert with the voices you have, right? You reimagine

these songs with the wonderful singers you're bringing to this concert. That's exactly right. So I have a different set of singers every time I do it, and I try to be as open as I can

I bring in many different styles of voices as I can because it kind of forces us in the room to come up with fresh concepts

An example I can give you is Robert has one of the smoothest soulful voices that I've come across in Canada

and I love listening to his voice just like ring over these long notes

So I knew as soon as he said yes, that I wanted to find a way to have

a part of any song. I didn't have a song in mind, but any song where I could just hear him

ooh, just like long phrasing. And so we talked a lot. And one of the songs that we came across

is you'll never walk alone. And this is a classic song. And it's also been, of course

recorded and thought of in many different ways. But with that soulful voice, I just thought to

myself, I'm going to give you an example. Do you mind if I give an example? Oh, our audience would love it. So I am not Robert Ball, but the soul only goes up from here. So

I thought of this vibe. This is where I started. And I just loved this sound

It was soft and it was calm. And it gave him a chance to do this

When you walk through a storm, hold your head up high. And it had this beautiful soul

And we went through the song. And as we got towards the end, we had that monumental moment

We come out of a piano. solo. Walk on, walk on with hope in your heart. And so that's a really great

example of how we just sit down and we think of a song and go, how can we work this song to that

beautiful nugget that's inside of you that I'm hoping to pull out? And it makes a very inspiring

process because every time we come out of the rehearsal room, we kind of walk out going like

I'm really excited about this. I want to do this like more. And so it's got this little life to it

because all of the artists that I'm working with haven't done a number of the things that they'll do with me on

this stage and so the true soul the true spirit of theater in my opinion is you experience it on

stage i think that's such a wonderful opportunity for us to pass on communication and so they'll

be on that stage and truthfully have never done some of these songs the way that we will do them

and the other part about it is i spent a lot of time touring with that with a wonderful canadian

group called the tenors they brought me on incredible journeys and we got to see so many great

things during that time I wasn't one of the tenors I was their musical

director so I was at the piano and and a lot of times I'd be sitting there

playing and I watch singers and I have a whole conversation going on in my head I would totally do that oh I wish i could do that i want to i love how he does and that that is the the genesis of what the show is it now i get

to say the things in my head to all these great singers and then bring them out and i spend so much

time with that project that moving out of it without opening my mouth i felt like i learned

so much about being an artist a musician and a unique voice in this community

I had goosebumps just hearing what you played because of course there's nothing better than

Rodgers and Hammerstein and you come to think about it that you know music can like you said be

reimagined in so many different ways when you have a gorgeous melody and gorgeous lyrics it's

all about that and then you can do a little spin on it whatever you want to do for someone's vocals

and your arrangements and it just takes us somewhere else I agree with you totally and you know

Richard, one of the things I really love about it is, like you said, a Rogers and

Hammerstein melody is a special thing. It's written in some senses so simply that it can take

on sort of the jacket of so many different styles. And that's a really wonderful doorway

to many different listeners. In Brampton, we are very multicultural. We have lots of

different people and some of them haven't had a chance to see theater before. And so they come in

and they're going, oh, I don't know if I want this thing, or I don't know if I want, they don't know what they want

And so we sit down and we meet them at a place that they know

It's a cultural-based thing. Someone might be singing soul music, but it's a melody from the 30s and the 40s

I just, it really does inspire me to try and find those moments

See, that's what I love about Brampton on stage. I spoke to many artists over the years from up there

and I just love that you have this diverse theater community where people just go

there to see all these different things. Shakespeare, new work, reimagined music

I mean, it's just this whole cultural area where people, you know, come and enjoy all this

I'm very excited about that. So what are some of the other numbers that you've chosen that you've curated for this version of reimagined

Great question. I have a couple of favorites. So things that I've done in a few of the concerts where I just feel so at home with them that they act as like that, what I call anchors during the show

If I'm a little bit sort of scattered or if I've looked around and see. someone I knew and I haven't seen them. This brings me sort of back to a place that's in my

fingers and it's in my heart. My favorite one probably is over the rainbow. Over the Rainbow is a

melody that I've never heard someone say, you shouldn't sing that. It's just got such a gorgeous

arc to it. And again, you can play it in many different ways. So I'll start with that one. So I kind

of have this vibe where I kind of try and set a tone

Somewhere over the rainbow, blue birds fly

Why then why can't I? And I love working with melodies. Somewhere over the rainbow skies, skies are blue

And the dream will come true

They really do come true. And so I bring it to this place where I feel like this train is chugging along

And that rainbow has just shown up. You've seen a rainbow before. It shows up and it goes as quickly

Just as you have time to go like, that is the most, gorgeous thing I've ever it's just sort of fading already and so like for me I think of over the

rainbow and I think of like this sun sunrise kind of vibe so I bring the whole tone of it back and then

I play a little bit side and I trust that that melody will will hook the ear and heart of the listener

and then I just play and and I love I grew up as a choral singer and so in in choral music we have

four parts we have soprano alto tenor and bass and so sopranos of course is the

top and then alto's the middle. Tenor is sort of a lower range that's at the top and bass is at the

bottom. Well, I grew up as an alto. And then when I turned into what was meant to be a tenor

my choral guy would always come and say, you know what you need to be. I need you to sing alto still because we don't have enough altos. So I spent a lot of time singing. And I mean

again, I did not love it when I was in grade 11 or 10 doing it. But little did I know that it opened up

and strengthen the part of my voice that I didn't even know was beneficial to me

And so when I'm singing all the way up there and delicate, I feel a lot of that

There's resonance in my whole body, and it's just a full body experience. So something like Over the Rainbow gives me an opportunity not only to perform something I love

but also to just have it in me and just enjoy. And so I think that when those two things come together, it's a win-win

you know, we can enjoy it in the audience, but also I am moving through it going

this is so great. I love this. Listen, that song was written in 1939 and so many incredible artists to this day continue to

you know, reimagine and reinterpret that number. But again, it's the melody and the lyric

I mean, very few people nowadays write melody and lyric. I mean, that's why you look back at, you know, the great creators who created songs

pop songs and show songs. I mean, that real singers can sing that are not screeching to, you know, whatever

I mean, I call screech singing now a lot. And people write for screech singing

And I don't understand it. I love the people who continue to write for the voice

Yeah, it's a skill set. Absolutely. Yeah. And, you know, one of the beautiful things about Broadway is that it's, I've always believed that it's a mirror of the time that it lives in in a lot of those moments

And so we look back at it. And actually, we're looking back at the lessons of our generations past

And someone will look on this music in 20 years. And there will be an overarching reason or thought or belief as to why people

wrote in that direction. And I'm cool with, don't get me wrong, I'll sing Passing and Paul all day

I love it. But I also agree that if you're a baritone, it's going to be hard to sing Passac and Paul

because they write for tenors. Meanwhile, you could take Old Man River and what we just played, you'll never walk alone

and you can find a way for any voice to find beauty

And I think there's something to be said for that classic treatment. So I'm on board

I love melody. I think it's an important, and in some ways, classically, certainly

a bit of a lost or rediscovered art. We're trying to find it back

But you're absolutely right. They don't write them like they used to

See, I know everybody writes for tenors, but like I said, give me a bass baritone anytime

the day. And I'm like, that's my wheelhouse or whatever else. Now, you started your career at Brampton

on stage right at the Rose Did you begin your career there Tell me about that and what you learned from that Absolutely So in fact the Rose Theater which is this crown jewel in Branton a beautiful performance space

It's top of the line. Everything is beautiful in there. What predates that is a place called the Heritage Theater

And it's where the basics, the beginnings of that arts and culture spirit was

And that's where I started. So I'm older than the Rose. But when I was at the Heritage, we were doing shows

One of my first shows was working on projects like, I Love You, Your Perfect Now Change, Songs for New World, shows that I had never heard of some of those shows before I had come to this content

So Brampton was very forward-looking. Even back then, they were very forward-looking at putting content in front of people

And I started as both a musical director and a performer. I was musical director for shows like I Love You're Perfect Now Change, and a funny thing happened on the way to the forum

This is in the early 2000s, but I also got probably my most cherished memory with Brampton is I got to play the part of Man One in Songs for New World, which for me was a dream role. It's the part, quite frankly, that brought me to theater. And I'll tell you that story. I'm going to give you a quick one. So in the early 2000s, my older brother who works at the Shaw Festival in Niagara on the Lake, which is a major part of Canadian culture, they had a Saturday thing they did when all the artists would just kind of come to the basement

It was a very speak, easy feel. And he called me one day and he said, hey, what are you doing tonight

Nothing? Get over here. I'm not even going to tell you. Just get over here and be here for 10.30

10.30 p.m. I thought, who does? There's no theater show start. Anyway, so we went over and I sat in the basement

And at 1055, the lights went down. And a pianist came over and sat down and then four singers stood in front of me

And it was the Toronto cast of Songs for New World. And they started and finished that show over the next 100 minutes or so

And I had never heard of it. My brother purposely kind of set me up for it

And when King of the World hit, which is maybe song 10 or 11 and in a 13 or 16 song cycle

oh my goodness, I'd been hit by a cultural freight train. I didn't know what was up

And that was the moment that I chose theater. And so these connections, so the connection of Branton taking me to the connection in Niagara

and finding the show, these are all connected to the way that I found myself, quite frankly

here today. I always knew I wanted to be in theater. a part of theater, be a part of bringing those lessons. But when I look back to the sort of

you know, the line we all live as we find our way to the present, I just could have never

guessed that a show like that would show up for me, that it would stick with me. I still

if I see that performer, Tom Allison, Canadian royalty, if I see Tom Allison, I immediately think

right back to being seven feet away from him as he performs King of the World. It's incredible what

theater can do for us. Yeah. You know, you shared the stage performing with so many

iconic people from Celine Dion to Stevie Wonder. I mean, what did you learn from them performing with

them? I'm sure those some big pinch me moments when you're like, oh my gosh, I'm on the bill with

them. Then all of a sudden you're like, oh my God, that's Celine Dion, that's Stevie Wonder

What did you take away from them? That's a great question. I think the major thing that I always was

so surprised by is that they're human beings. I thought of them for ages

as eight feet tall statues of these legendary people, and they are absolutely

But what it showed me is that we all have some part of that wonderful opportunity

So meeting Stevie Wonder is probably the crown jewel of my professional life

He is the person that I've looked up to since I was just a child. And I knew it was Stevie because actually I wasn't told he was Stevie in advance

I actually was given this job. So I was going to do the gig. and there was all these, the show American Idol had a tour on the road

And so they had five or six of their contenders coming in, and we were going to music direct a round of Lean on me

And so they said, hey, Darren, you're going to be in with the boys. Can you spend a couple hours, make an arrangement, get it ready

and then just deliver it as the musician to all of them? Absolutely

So I spent two or three days getting charts and figuring out the names of people and how their voices fit

and put it all together. And the day before the gig, I got an email. And they said, hey, thanks for all the world

you've done, we don't need it anymore. We're good. We're actually going to cancel the set

I was heartbroken. And I wrote back and I said, it's cool, but here's some of the charts in

case you found someone that fits the bill better. And I just got an email back that said, actually

we canceled you because Stevie Wonder's coming in. And I went, if I'm going to lose a gig

I'm cool to lose it to Stevie Wonder. And so I lost the gig to Stevie Wonder. And then the next day when I

saw him and got a chance to spend a few minutes with him and see what he does, I just thought

we are amongst people that changed the world, you know, what's around them, the projects

they build, the songs they write, the culture they bring along with them are things that you

could never control the amount of human beings, the amount of souls, the amount of spirits that

they touch. And that was the biggest takeaway is that there's an opportunity in the arts to be

one of those people. You may not be Celine Dion, you may not be Stevie-1

but you can certainly strive in the general direction, and that is a positive outcome

Well, that leads me into talk about your passion as a mentor, educator, and how COVID

reignited that passion for you. Thanks. Thanks for asking. So I was on the road for 10 years leading up to COVID

And like everyone in this industry, I have a specific kind of moment that I know COVID

started for me, and that was the week before Canada started shutting down a lot of

its borders. And that was a show we were going to do in Vancouver at a hospital. And the hospital

canceled because they had some unfortunate numbers that they were finding. And they didn't feel

in good faith, doing a concert and announcing these things. And so I got that call. And then the next

several months, like many artists, was four walls. It was just four walls for days and weeks and

months. And when I was down in the depths of, like, what am I doing? What am I doing? I don't even know

I've been playing music every day for 10 years in this beautiful frenetic pace

What am I going to do? I got a call from an old friend, which speaks so much to the importance of the people we surround ourselves with

And this is a friend I hadn't talked to in a decade, not regularly. And this friend said, you know, I have this theater company, and there's 30 children who are used to coming into vocal lessons every week

We can't do it. We don't have the means. We don't have the technology. you're a musician but you're also techie

Could you figure it out so that you could meet them every week on Zoom and do a thing

And I thought, oh man, I didn't know if I was ready to get back to this

But this is the present that we're in. So I did one, and that's all it took

I did that one and I saw these kids how they were pining for music

how if I played a little, you know, all of a sudden they were lift

Oh, I know that song. So I immediately changed my mindset. to how can I be of value in this time, you know, and I found that we had so many people

myself included, that were doing things like Instagram concerts and, you know, fundraising on online

And I was doing it as well because it fed us. But doing this with young people gave me an

opportunity to trust that I was pushing out some positivity and I was hooked. I had done it

years ago and I forgot about what it felt like and I had done all these wonderful things that

filled my cup and I felt ready. to be the pouring instead of the receiving And I just I went all the way and I found children You know I heard stories from my students over the next two years of positive value that

I could have with them. Things like kids having hard times being locked in rooms and looking forward to those 30

minutes they got to spend with just hearing and singing. And the value of music just skyrocketed in my mind

I couldn't believe how valuable the arts and culture were. I had seen it from the other side

being on a stage, you know, with 14 or 15,000 people in an audience and hearing the love and feeling the love was a very satisfying thing

But hearing one child or one parent even come on one day and go, you know, Kay hasn't had a smile on her face for six and a half days

And she's been so sad, you know, and I'd like to see her find her way back to having a good day

And you found a way, I don't even know what you did, but she came out of the lesson happy. And I thought, that's something I could get on board with

And that led me to start what I call the Gratitude Project, which is I like to have children doing projects that they can be proud of, projects that they can put out

And so we did a few of them in the pandemic where they weren't even, they had spent a minute with each other

They were filming at home and doing home video style and we were putting it together in a project

And they had a purpose. And I carried that through. And that's the beginning of what I started to think like, we can take art and put an education in it

without educating. Actually, I said that backwards. We can educate people, but not make it feel like

education. That's what I meant to say. And I found real value in that. And Maria imagined takes that

what gratitude project started, and it kind of gives me an opportunity to put wonderful, positive

stories and experiences, hardships that led to, you know, real important decisions, putting some real

life backing behind what it takes to succeed, what it takes to feel like failure and find your

way out of it, and wrap them in arts and culture, which I think all of the things we've been

talking about, you know, education, reimagining music, finding the stories and lessons in

Broadway. These are all things that I'm proud to kind of put in front of me and push at whatever

pace I'm able to push it. I love it. Now, I know you have a lot of future projects. I know you have a

big one coming up, which you may not be able to talk about, but would you mention one of your future projects? I sure can. Yeah. So for me, of course, the Roe, the Reimagined concert is a

beginning of a project. I look to shape it. With Mrs. Brampton, we're given the space

artistically to give it some time to figure itself out. Sometimes you don't know where the soul

or stories lie until the audience can take them. And so that's the process I'm doing with

reimagined. It's something that I think we can really find ways. to communicate with multiple audiences, whether it be in Canada, there's potential for us going outside of Canada

But there's also some new music that I'm a part of. You know, I have a couple of projects. One, I can't give you tons of details about them. I know it's so cryptic, but I've gotten into composition and writing over the last number of years as well. And after writing some content, I really realized that I have something to say. And so the real challenge when you're composing, when you're writing, is finding people that you can collaborate with the

that the mold can continually change, but you have that wonderful thing in the middle

that you believe in. And so the cryptic side of it is, I'm finding people in Canada that are sensational at what they do

And it gives me the opportunity to chase that sensational feeling. And that's what my 2025 will comprise of

is surrounding myself with people that I couldn't believe I get an opportunity

to be in a room with and create content that when it pushes out, it will feed things like

I love my classical background. I love the piano as an instrument

but I also love creative instrumentation. You know, when you watch something that you didn't realize

that that instrument was so important to you, I love that creation

And so 2025 will bring me an opportunity in theater to write

to create a piece with someone, with a couple of people, actually, that I'm super proud to be even in the room with

And when those names come out and I get to see my name beside them, I really feel like I'll be like

that's what I worked for, to have people like that support and work with me and let me support

them in the creation of new content. I also have, so my son is very musical. And who knew that

some of the most creative stuff comes at a single digit kids? He's been writing and he loves

he loves things like Minecraft and YouTube. And he has such a wonderful

mind and who knew that he could write music? Who knew? And so we have a project that we're actually

working on together where we write content. And he is so young that he has no idea how to record

things. And he has no idea how to do these things. But that's where I come in. So I get to tap

into his genius and find a way to put those things in the works. And the first two that we did

I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe that they came out of his mind. We listened to these

songs, these demos, getting them from like, you know, seed to studio. And we thought, I don't

know if this is going to work. And he just kept going, Dad, you know, this is not what I'm trying to say. I want to do this one, you know, and so we wrote, and it's actually really accessible to

young people. And it's something that I'm really proud of because as we spoke about, education

is the beginning of everything. And to be able to do that with my son is a fulfilling thing

and at a, well, obviously at a DNA level, but also in my bones. I just feel the positivity come out of that

And then his little sister gets to be a part of it as well. So that project, who knew that that project had legs, but it does

and we'll have some legs that we can actually be proud of and work on in 2025. And then, of course, Reimagined has a sound that we're trying to develop

And so capturing where they come above water and we want to have them be representers

or lighthouses for the rest of our concerts. That's the last part of my project

And so we'll have, excuse me, we'll have an EP coming out in the next year or so

but it's writing already and the demos are going to be out by the end of this year where we can see how does this fit

And when Robert, for example, sings, you'll never walk alone. What does that bring out

Can we extrapolate that a little bit? And so all these incredible artists, excuse me

we'll have a chance to reimagine these songs and bring life to them

And then I'd love for those things to be something to, you know, find legs that someone might find later and go, oh, that's exactly what I was looking for

That's the goal. I love that. Yeah. Thank you. No, I love it. We're just about out of time

But I want to say once again, Darren D'Souza will be performing his new show

This is Brampton, reimagined, a concert curated by him, which will take place at the Rose on October 18th at 8 p.m

For tickets, please go to Tickets.brampton.ca. Jared, do you want to play us out

I absolutely do. How about one of our favorites? 525,600 minutes, 525,000 moments to play

525,600 minutes. How do you measure the life of a woman or man

In the truth that she learned, or in times that he cried

and the bridges he burned or the way that she died. Thanks, Richard. I appreciate you so much

Thanks for everything you do here. Thank you very much, everybody. We'll see you at the theater and go see his show

Take care, everybody, and we'll see you at the theater