Fiona Apple's sister stars in NY cabaret revival

10/21/2005 12:51 PM, Reuters


New York is in the midst of a cabaret revival this week and rock star Fiona Apple's sister is at center stage.

Maude Maggart is one of more than 100 cabaret artists appearing in two events wrapping up this week -- the annual Cabaret Convention, which moved from Town Hall to the larger Lincoln Center, and the Broadway Cabaret Festival. Both have been drawing sellout crowds.

The New York cabaret events are taking place on big stages, instead of the clubs like Feinstein's and Danny's Skylight Room in New York and The Gardenia in Los Angeles that define the music.

"Cabaret music is more of a venue than a type of sound," Maggart said in an interview.

It is usually performed in small, intimate settings, with just a piano player to accompany a singer reviving golden songs from the past.

While her edgy rock-star sister Fiona Apple, born Fiona Apple Maggart, is on a tour of big concert halls, Maude plays the small nightclubs of the cabaret circuit.

Last week, she finished a show of Irving Berlin tunes at the Algonquin Hotel's Oak Room that drew rave reviews. A New York Times reviewer called her "singular and arresting" as she sang Berlin's "Alexander's Rag Time Band" and "Always" -- numbers that were hits more than 80 years ago.

Cabaret is a nostalgic world and some see it as an endangered species but Maggart has become its glitzy young star. She landed on the cover of Time Out magazine ahead of this week's shows and the magazine crowned her "the darling of the cabaret set" and described her as "straight out of the flapper era."

The late-blooming Maggart, glamorous in the period lace gowns she performs in, says she was drawn to cabaret because she grew up in a Broadway family. Her parents and grandparents were entertainers on the New York stage.

Maggart, 30, and her sister, grew up singing together in their New York apartment. Fiona, who is two years younger, was already a triple-platinum album superstar at 18, while Maude was studying opera and working with cabaret legend Andrea Marcovicci. Maude's music debut came nearly a decade after her sister was already a star.

"We both sort of fell into what we did," Maggart said. "Fiona was always a brilliant songwriter and things worked for her immediately. I didn't know what direction to go."

Despite her celebrity status in cabaret, Maggart says she will not necessarily stay in the genre.

"I'm a kind of 'in the moment' sort of gal," she said. "Whatever comes my way I'll consider it."