By Neil Cheesman / June 29, 2026

Melissa Errico will make her Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club debut on Sunday, 12th July at 12pm with The Summer Knows, a celebration of the music of legendary composer Michel Legrand.

A Tony Award nominee, Melissa’s Broadway credits include My Fair Lady, High Society, White Christmas, Les Misérables and Amour, Michel Legrand’s only Broadway musical. She has since become one of the world’s leading interpreters of his work, performing at his sold-out memorial concerts in Paris and London.

Alongside her acclaimed recording and concert career, Melissa is also a celebrated writer whose work has appeared in The New York Times. She is married to former professional tennis player and broadcaster Patrick McEnroe, making her London visit particularly timely during Wimbledon season.

Read our Interview with Melissa

Q: You worked directly with Michel Legrand and starred in Amour, his only Broadway musical. What made him such a unique artist and collaborator?

Melissa: Michel had the rare ability to make sophistication feel instinctive. His harmonies are wild and demanding on a singer, but they never feel made for their own sake. The feelings are always there. His music is at once French and American, classical and jazz, cinematic and intimate. Have you ever heard that wonderful quote by him – “Throughout my life, I’ve always wanted to vary my musical pleasures, and to remain an eternal beginner, without ever rationalizing things in terms of a “career“. When you become too skillful, your spontaneity disappears, you’re no longer afraid of anything. I hope I never become someone whom people cooly describe as “very professional.” An eternal beginner! I have that clipped out and hung up over my desk.

As a collaborator, he was endlessly curious. He wasn’t interested in preserving his music under glass; he wanted performers to bring themselves to it. Every singer discovers something different in them, and somehow the songs are large enough to contain all those discoveries. I have a demo of Michel and me working, and you can hear his voice, leaning into me, “Melissa, Melissa… more free!” – and later you can hear him exhaling, “ahhhh.”

Q: You’ve become one of the world’s leading interpreters of Legrand’s work. What is it about his music that continues to inspire you?

Melissa: I never feel I’ve reached the end of a Michel Legrand song. There is always another color hidden in the harmony or another emotional turn you can discover, or italicize in a lyric. I love to sing some of his songs in French, and often the English lyrics are by Alan and Marilyn Bergman. I knew all of them – and I was blessed that they wrote some music especially for me, which made me feel like a part of their artistic family. The first was a new verse to “You Must Believe in Spring,” which I felt could be healing to a world reeling after 9/11. It was like magic to suggest that they add a verse, and they faxed it to me two days later! Soon after, they wrote “In Another Life” for my symphonic album with Michel. I did so many of their last harvest of songs: “Hurry Home” in 2017 for a movie credits track, and Alan Bergman gave me his last collaboration with Legrand, “I Haven’t Thought of This in Quite A While,” which I was honored to record and release on Warner Music. On Broadway, Legrand added songs for me that were not in the Paris production. I wrote a eulogy for him in The New York Times after Michel passed and told the story of how we would run downstairs at the Music Box Theater during previews and create new songs together in the basement lobby. My mind is full of happy memories.

The musical libretto was by Jeremy Sams and over the years, Jeremy has translated or playfully adapted some very under-the-radar songs for me. One appears on my film noir album, and another, the carnivalesque “Fishing Song” (L’ame Soeur a L’Hamecon), will appear at Ronnie’s. During the pandemic, Jeremy and I would laugh and talk and comfort ourselves, finding old Legrand melodies and setting them to lyrics. Jeremy is brilliant fun, and knows Michel’s mischievous side. “You Still Belong To Me” is one such song.

Michel understood contradiction better than almost any composer I know. The same musical phrase can be sung joyfully or sadly. It’s so different from the beautiful ambivalence in Sondheim, who registers it in words. Legrand writes ambivalent music. His sound is European and American at the same time, and he once said his goal for our album was to be “oceanique et intime.” Contradiction everywhere, but reconciled. Memory is never simply nostalgic—it is alive, changing as we change, wild like nature. His songs grow older with you, and that’s one of the greatest gifts a composer can give.

Q: Your Ronnie Scott’s debut is titled The Summer Knows. What can audiences expect from the show, and what does that song mean to you personally?

Melissa: I hope they’ll feel as though they’re spending ninety minutes inside one long summer afternoon.

The programme moves through Legrand’s extraordinary world—his film music, his jazz writing, his songs for Broadway—but it’s also about memory, longing, wit, romance, and reinvention. There are stories, surprises, and even a bit of sexuality. Laughter everywhere, I hope.

“The Summer Knows” has always felt to me like a song about time itself. It begins in heat and desire but ends by gently reminding us that every season changes. I find that both heartbreaking and comforting.

Q: Ronnie Scott’s is one of the world’s most famous jazz venues. What does it mean to you to be making your debut there?

Melissa: It’s one of those rooms musicians dream about.

What excites me most is its history. So many artists I’ve admired have stood on that stage, each bringing their own voice without trying to imitate anyone who came before them.

I don’t want to arrive pretending to be a jazz legend. I want to arrive as myself—someone who has travelled through Broadway, cabaret, recording studios and concert halls, and who has gradually discovered that jazz isn’t a style as much as a way of listening.

Q: Your career has encompassed Broadway, cabaret, concert work and recording. Do you approach storytelling differently in each of those settings?

Melissa: The principles never change—you’re always trying to tell the truth—but the scale changes enormously.

On Broadway, you’re serving the story of the play. In cabaret, you’re inviting the audience into your own story. Recording asks for microscopic honesty because the microphone hears everything. It is the singer’s close-up. Concert work sits somewhere between the two.

I love moving among them because each discipline teaches me something about the others. I arrive ready to bring everyone into an experience. I bring the best musicians on earth every time. We have a long history and they know we are making music, and painting, and learning note by note what is still possible in life.

Q: Alongside your performing career, you’ve established yourself as a writer. Do writing and singing fulfill different creative needs for you?

Melissa: Of course. Writing is wonderfully solitary. You can chase an idea for days before anyone sees it. Singing is the opposite. It only truly exists when it’s shared. But both are an effort to find your soul and have it be clearly felt and heard.

Writing has made me a better singer because it has taught me to trust silence, rhythm and specificity. I have a silent side. For a person capable of making so much noise, you would be surprised at how quiet I can be! Singing has made me a better writer because music connects me to my emotions, to my tears, to my fantasies. Music brings all the tools to the surface. It is like a magnet that pulls every passion from far inside me, to the edge of my skin. The main problem with me is that I am drawn to make music so urgently that I sometimes resist the removal from the world that I need to write. I am so busy “tearing around,” as Desiree warns. After all, I am the girl who considered joining the circus at 18, and it’s hard to repress her.

Q: You recently described London as a “milestone city” in your life. What is it about London that has made it such an important place in your artistic journey?

Melissa: London has continually arrived at moments when I’ve been growing into a new version of myself. My first visits were full of theatre in summers as an intern. In high school, I lost my virginity there. I don’t say that to raise eyebrows. I say it because it was beautiful. He was a classical actor at RADA. I went on to play Cosette in “Les Miserables” at age 18, and met all those great names of the time: Cameron McIntosh, Trevor Nunn, John Caird… I was entranced by the world of English theatre. I got to know Christopher Hampton, Nick Hytner and David Hare. After Yale, as a young adult, I had a love affair with a British director that changed my life. We sensed that, in part, David Hare’s “Skylight” was affected by our relationship. That director is no longer with us. Over the years, I played at least a dozen British ladies – such as Eliza, Guenevere, Mina, Gwendolyn, Candida, Nancy – in New York theater. I sang in London in night clubs and at Royal Festival Hall for the starry Michel Legrand memorial.

More recently, London became a place where audiences have embraced my work in ways that encouraged me to keep evolving—from Sondheim in the City at Cadogan Hall to now bringing Michel Legrand to Ronnie Scott’s.

It’s a city that reveres tradition but welcomes reinvention. As an artist, that’s a wonderful combination.

Q: You’ll be in London during Wimbledon fortnight. Has being part of a tennis family changed the way you think about pressure, preparation and performing on the big stage?

Melissa: Absolutely. Watching Patrick and the rest of his family over the years has taught me that confidence isn’t the absence of nerves. It’s preparation meeting opportunity. Patrick and I grew up together – I have known him since I was 5. We re-met when I was 26, and have been married almost 30 years. Meeting him brought my life together – athleticism, shared values, and lifelong love.

Tennis players can’t hide when things go wrong, and singers can’t either. You’re alone out there. The trick is learning to welcome that vulnerability instead of fearing it. On the court with me, my husband always says cool things like: “Don’t run to the ball, let it come to you!” – and “relax your arm, the ball will go faster.” And the one I like best: “Don’t aim for a winner. Just return the ball. Keep the ball in play.”

Q: Looking back on your career so far, is there a role, performance or moment that you feel shaped you most as an artist?

Melissa: Oddly enough, I don’t think of one defining role. Each chapter prepared me for the next: My Fair Lady taught me discipline; Sondheim taught me precision; Michel Legrand taught me freedom.

Lately, though, I’ve become increasingly interested in creating programmes that are entirely my own. There is something deeply satisfying about shaping an evening from the first note to the last and inviting audiences into a world you’ve imagined yourself.

Q: After Ronnie Scott’s, what’s next on your creative horizon?

Melissa: I’m always balancing performance with writing, so there are concerts ahead and there are essays waiting to be written.

I’ll be bringing my Streisand programme to audiences later this summer, and I’m already dreaming about future recordings. I’m also increasingly drawn to larger creative projects that combine music, memoir, film and storytelling. My children inspire me. One is a ballerina who is now studying journalism and filmmaking; another is at Oxford studying Climate Change; and the third daughter, a Duke student, is working in finance at Goldman Sachs.

At this point in my life, I’m less interested in choosing one path than in letting all the different parts of my artistic and personal life speak to one another. That’s where I seem to find the most joy. For the moment, I just want to enjoy July 12 to the fullest and have the audience enjoy it as much as I do!