I have had an amazing career playing on and off Broadway and have had the great fortune to work with people like Madonna, Harry Connick Jr., and Andrew Lloyd Webber. I have also had the honor to play on original Broadway cast recordings as well.
Some of the songs on this CD will be very familiar to you, while others I guarantee you have never heard before. Broadway and the songs that are featured in the musicals that play there are much more than just tourist attractions or "notes on a page" simply to be played. They represent the best of humanity and are a reflection of the time they are written. Some are just for fun, while others are created to make us think, to question our own existence. The Music of Broadway is rich with wonderful songs that bring back memories and stir the emotions.
This recording is called, "Broadway, My Way" because each and every live show I ever played had an impact on who I am, what I do, and how I play and because "my way" is the only way I experience something, just like your way is the only way you can experience things, too.
Please, sit back and relax and let me take you on a wonderful tour of some of the best songs from Broadway I think have ever been created. Enjoy!
As a kid who grew up in rural south Mississippi, I spent my earliest years serving as the pianist for my church. I played by ear from the time I was four years old, and most of the music I was exposed to were the hymns I heard at our worship services each Sunday. At Edna Baptist Church,apparently most of the preachers called to serve there also brought along with them a wife who usually became the church pianist. This must have been a big selling point for the pastor search committees , considering there was no one in th community who played the piano, well enough to carry worship services , not to mention funerals,weddings revivals or whatever other special occasions for which the church pianist might be expected to supply music.
When I turned seven , our preacher, along with his wife pianist left Edna Church for some other Congregationalist the only person in our community who knew all the songs we sang and could actually play them on the piano, I became our new church pianist. This was a position I held until I was in the tenth grade, when I was hired by Cedar Grove Baptist Church , north of our town Columbia, where I served as the pianist through my last two years of high school.
When I went to college, I became the organist for yet another church in the town where I was in school. But,when I graduated,and found myself moving to New York City,my life and careers as a church musician suddenly came to an end. I had spent seventeen years of my life playing for church , and I must say , this sudden absence was shocking and very difficult for me to manage. My spiritual life had been centered around my work in whatever church I served.
For the next twenty-five years, I rarely had the opportunity to play for a worship service of any kind. I did play the occasional offertory or some special number whenever I would visit my folks back in Mississippi , but I don't recall playing a complete church service. All those years in New York, the only time I remember playing in a church was for the annual cabaret benefit performances for St.Lukes Lutheran Church W.46th St.
Four years ago, I was hired to play rock and roll music in a production of "We will rock you" at the Paris Casino in Las Vegas. One evening I casually mentioned to a colleague in passing as we were leaving the bandstand after a show that I would like to look into the possibility of playing for a church again someday. He said that his church was looking for a new-keyboard player and that he'd be happy to pass along my name and phone number to the music director. He did , and the next Sunday, I found myself playing for worship service again, at Faith Community Lutheran Church in Las Vegas!
Now I find myself still a pianist and key- board player at Faith Community.Through my time here I've found myself intrigued by Lutheran hymns,Lutheran people, and I have fallen deeply in love with what I've discovered in the music, and maybe even because of these people. I asked for help in compiling a list of favorite hymns that I might offer in a recording that might resonate for these amazing people who have served me in my own quest to rediscover the Holy Spirit that drew me into such musical service when I was a little country boy.
In a sense,this collection has become a tribute to the Unseen Presence at work in all our lives that exist all around us, inside us when we can not see our next step. Our FAITH offers us a most divine assurance, inspiring us to carry on...
In the spring of 2008, I needed to put together a collection of photographs to use in some upcoming projects. Instead of hiring a photographer to shoot a typical headshot or any predictable and obvious pictures, I wanted to explore the idea of collecting some shots in nature that just happened to include me. My friend and colleague, Kevin Stout, who is also a wonderful photographer, recommended the Valley of Fire, in the desert just north of Las Vegas, as a possible setting.
He also suggested that we might consider getting there before dawn so we could take advantage of the “first light” of day. In the desert, once the sun has risen, many details and colors seen at daybreak disappear or become washed out because the sunlight is so intense.
On the day of our trek into this wilderness for this photo shoot, I picked up Kevin at his home around 3:30 a.m. We parked out on a gravel road then hiked across a plain toward a grouping of large boulders where Kevin knew we would be in the direct path of dawn, where the light would reveal itself first. The experience of this first light of day was something I shall never forget, and is the inspiration for this collection of music.
I knew at the moment I stood in the face of this morning that I would play this. Of course, I didn’t know the specific music until the moment it was being played through me anymore than I knew the experience of day break, of dawn, or the very spiritual power of ‘first light’ until I found myself directly aligned in its moment by moment manifestation. Although I am not able to repeat my performance of these songs, each time I hear this music, I do recognize the results of having put my hands onto the keyboard and surrendering to what would be played in the hour or so required to complete this CD.
That it took me approximately forty-five minutes to play is in direct proportion to the time it took for that first light to begin to reveal itself, emerging through sunrise, finally bursting into full daybreak. The brighter the light became, the more what we saw in that world around us seemed to change. All those details were still there, but how we saw them continued to shift, as the light grew brighter. Yet the reality is that the world hadn’t changed; the way we saw it did.
Portraits In Music (2008) (description by Mike Hernacki)
When an artist is asked to paint a portrait, there’s an implied challenge: to create an image that not only looks like the person, but also captures the essence of that person on canvas.
This is very hard to do. When it is achieved, the smallest dab of paint can work the most magic, catching the light in a person’s eye, or a sense of humor in a corner of the mouth.
Farther Along is a second recording of hymn tunes. Three key experiences guided me as I planned my play list: finding my piano guru, living in New York City on 9/11, and moving to Las Vegas. The energies of confusion as well as moments of great clarity in the midst of major transitions, both personally and globally, led me to rediscover the lyrics of this old standard:
“Farther along we’ll know all about it, Farther along we’ll understand why. Cheer up, my brother, walk in the sunshine, We’ll understand it all by and by.”
One of the many things I’m deeply grateful for is a sense of place, of belonging, a connection to my southern heritage---my roots. One autumn, after a trip to my home in Mississippi that was way too short, I found myself back in New York City, at work playing my Broadway show, but longing to be back at my father’s cabin in the woods, overlooking Little River. I remember feeling very sad, and my heart ached to be back in that natural surrounding I loved since I was a kid.
I turned to my piano to give a voice to these feelings, these thoughts of trees, rivers, light, family—all the images that were still with me since my visit had felt so brief and incomplete. What I carried with me to the recording studio were the images in my mind, my feelings, and a list of song titles. What is included in this compilation was a sort of ‘free play’, an improvised collection created for my own inner peace.
I grew up in rural Mississippi in a tiny community called Edna. We lived on Highway 13 South, a few miles from the town of Columbia, known as the City of Charm on the Pearl (which is the Pearl River). Edna Baptist Church usually called preachers whose wives could play the piano since no one in our small congregation of about 65 people could play. I had begun playing piano by ear from the time I was four years old.
When I was in the second grade at Hub School, our pastor moved away. Because I knew and could play all the songs we ever sang, I suddenly became the church pianist (there was no organ). This meant providing the music for a morning and evening service on Sundays, a Wednesday night prayer meeting (followed by choir practice), plus weddings and funerals. That was also when Mom and Dad realized I might need to learn to read music.
There was a tradition among small country churches where each one would host an all-music service whenever there was a fifth Sunday in a month. The other churches would be invited to participate with whatever musical offerings they wanted to share. Many years later, a friend’s Mother was doing hospice care work in Nashville. She had had a copy of a cassette tape of some old hymns I had made for my folks years earlier, but now she wanted a new copy of it to share with some of the patients she was caring for since the only cassette she had was worn out.
My reason and my inspiration for the collection, which ultimately became Fifth Sunday, was that the music might offer some Divine peace, comfort, and love to anyone in transition through the sounds of these sacred melodies. The listen opens with a simple prayer (Speak to My Heart), leads toward visions of faith and trust (Beyond the Sunset, The Sweet By and By, On the Wings of a Dove), and concludes with expressions of gratitude and grace (Great is Thy Faithfulness, The Doxology/For the Beauty of the Earth).
I have had an amazing career playing on and off Broadway and have had the great fortune to work with people like Madonna, Harry Connick Jr., and Andrew Lloyd Webber. I have also had the honor to play on original Broadway cast recordings as well. 
Home for the Holidays is a new album of Philip Fortenberry.This album included following tracks :
As a kid who grew up in rural south Mississippi, I spent my earliest years serving as the pianist for my church. I played by ear from the time I was four years old, and most of the music I was exposed to were the hymns I heard at our worship services each Sunday. At Edna Baptist Church,apparently most of the preachers called to serve there also brought along with them a wife who usually became the church pianist. This must have been a big selling point for the pastor search committees , considering there was no one in th community who played the piano, well enough to carry worship services , not to mention funerals,weddings revivals or whatever other special occasions for which the church pianist might be expected to supply music.
In the spring of 2008, I needed to put together a collection of photographs to use in some upcoming projects. Instead of hiring a photographer to shoot a typical headshot or any predictable and obvious pictures, I wanted to explore the idea of collecting some shots in nature that just happened to include me. My friend and colleague, Kevin Stout, who is also a wonderful photographer, recommended the Valley of Fire, in the desert just north of Las Vegas, as a possible setting. 
When an artist is asked to paint a portrait, there’s an implied challenge: to create an image that not only looks like the person, but also captures the essence of that person on canvas.
Farther Along is a second recording of hymn tunes. Three key experiences guided me as I planned my play list: finding my piano guru, living in New York City on 9/11, and moving to Las Vegas. The energies of confusion as well as moments of great clarity in the midst of major transitions, both personally and globally, led me to rediscover the lyrics of this old standard: 
One of the many things I’m deeply grateful for is a sense of place, of belonging, a connection to my southern heritage---my roots. One autumn, after a trip to my home in Mississippi that was way too short, I found myself back in New York City, at work playing my Broadway show, but longing to be back at my father’s cabin in the woods, overlooking Little River. I remember feeling very sad, and my heart ached to be back in that natural surrounding I loved since I was a kid.
I grew up in rural Mississippi in a tiny community called Edna. We lived on Highway 13 South, a few miles from the town of Columbia, known as the City of Charm on the Pearl (which is the Pearl River). Edna Baptist Church usually called preachers whose wives could play the piano since no one in our small congregation of about 65 people could play. I had begun playing piano by ear from the time I was four years old.