How Glory Goes finds Audra McDonald, a four-time Tony Award winner (A Raisin in the Sun, Carousel, Master Class, Ragtime), at home in a variety of music theater styles—from standards by Harold Arlen, Jerome Kern, and Leonard Bernstein, among others, to the title track written by her contemporary Adam Guettel.

Conducted by Eric Stern and Ted Sperling, and produced by Tommy Krasker, this 14-song collection gives a special place to the music of Harold Arlen, which has long been a favorite of McDonald's. From the soulful “Any Place I Hang My Hat Is Home” to the wistful “The Man That Got Away,” Arlen’s emotional and musical vocabulary offers this “vocal artist of singular skill and ability” (New York Times) a vivid range of dramatic possibilities. The near-operatic “I Had Myself a True Love”, the tender “A Sleepin’ Bee,” and the swinging “I Never Has Seen Snow” also receive idiomatic interpretations here, identifying McDonald with Arlen’s innovative output.

McDonald maintains her commitment to the work of young composers writing in musical theater with How Glory Goes. The title track takes its name from the finale of Adam Guettel’s 1996 acclaimed musical Floyd Collins. McDonald has collaborated extensively with Guettel, beginning with the four songs included on her debut album, Way Back to Paradise. Guettel’s 1992 song “Was That You” is also included here, along with Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens’s “Come Down from the Tree,” written in 1990 for Once on This Island; Steve Marzullo’s “I Hid My Love,” with lyrics by the 19th-century British poet John Clare; “Lay Down Your Head,” from Jeanine Tesori’s acclaimed 1997 stagework Violet; and Jeff Blumenkrantz’s “I Won’t Mind,” from the 1998 show The Other Franklin.

Audra McDonald’s 1998 recording debut Way Back To Paradise boldly introduced the singular talents of one of Broadway’s fastest-rising stars. McDonald chose five of the most gifted writers in the new generation of composer-lyricists today. Songs by Ricky Ian Gordon, Adam Guettel, Michael John LaChiusa, Jenny Robert Brown, and Jenny Giering demonstrated the way in which these writers are resetting the stage of musical theater. Embraced by both the public and the critics, Way Back to Paradise prompted TIME magazine to say, “There is no finer singer on Broadway.”