Michael Feinstein does it his way

Singer and pianist Michael Feinstein enjoys his reign as worldwide champion and advocate of the “Great American Songbook,” the standards written by George and Ira Gershwin, Cole Porter, Irving Berlin and more.

“These songs are classics that still appeal to people,” Feinstein said. “They are unique expressions of human emotion that nothing else can equal.”

Feinstein plays some 200 shows a year. Past performances include concerts at Carnegie Hall, the Sydney Opera House, the Hollywood Bowl, the White House and Buckingham Palace.

Nominated for five Grammy Awards in a music industry where novelty dominates, Feinstein has won fame singing the great old songs.

Indeed, he could safely say, as Frank Sinatra so famously sang, “I did it my way.”

Sunday, Sept. 28 at Rohnert Park’s Green Music Center, Feinstein will do Frank Sinatra’s songs the Feinstein way, bringing his personal style to the master’s hits in “The Sinatra Project.”

The concert follows the center’s tradition of grand, fall-season kick-offs, starting when pianist Lang Lang performed at the opening of Weill Hall in 2012, and continuing last year with soprano Renee Fleming. Each fall, the center picks a special show, not necessarily the first on the schedule, for a lavish, all-out effort.

Featuring a classy cocktail reception before the show and a formal dinner at the center by Chef Holly Peterson from Calistoga’s Flourish restaurant after the concert, Sunday’s event is billed as the official celebration of the 2014-15 Mastercard Performance Series in Weill Hall, which informally began with two shows last week.

“Every major arts organization likes to launch its season in a festive manner, and this is our way of doing that,” said Zarin Mehta, co-director of the Green Music Center.

“This year, we’re doing more in the popular music vein, as well as classical,” Mehta said. “Michael Feinstein is someone who knows the American popular music genre inside-out. That makes him a great person to launch the season.”

Feinstein’s concert will be a rare chance to hear a live performance of “The Sinatra Project,” released as a CD in 2009.

“I haven’t done this show on a regular basis for quite a while. It was fun to hear the song charts again. They felt fresh to me,” Feinstein said. “The whole point of the project was to find my own take on Frank Sinatra’s body of work, and find out for myself what those songs are really about. I never tried to imitate him. There’s no reason to do that.”

Instead, Feinstein strives to give fans the essence of what made Sinatra a leader in pop music.

“Sinatra made a conscious effort in the 1950s to find a new way to present the great songs in a swing style,” Feinstein said.

Singing tunes like Nelson Riddle’s arrangement of Porter’s “Begin the Beguine,” Sinatra gave the standard songs new life, Feinstein explained.

“His ears demanded a more exciting sound,” he said.

Feinstein divides his time between Los Angeles, New York and Carmel, Ind., where he headquarters his Michael Feinstein Great American Songbook Initiative, seeking to preserve the standard songs and promote them to a younger audience.

As if performing and recording weren’t enough, Feinstein is also in the nightclub business. With partners, he runs Feinstein’s the Nikko, in San Francisco’s Nikko Hotel, and had a Manhattan club until 2012.

“I’m not involved in the day-to-day work, but because my name is on it, I do pay close attention,” he said.

You can reach staff writer Dan Taylor at 521-5243 or dan.taylor@pressdemocrat.com. Read his Arts blog at arts.blogs.pressdemocrat.com.