February 4, 2005

Darius de Haas can pinpoint the night he decided he would become a singer. The precise moment, in fact.
It was the night, 20-some years ago, when his parents took him to Lena Horne's Broadway show "The Lady and Her Music."

"Early in the show, she did 'Stormy Weather,'" says de Haas. "It was fine, a decent version. But then at the end, she sang it again and this time she talked about how different it was for her now, after all that had happened in her life. She said she could now sing it 'the way it wants to be sung.' The whole experience of her life was wrapped around it.

"It was breathtaking. She must have gotten 15 standing ovations. I was only what, 12 or 13, but that was my 'A-ha!' moment. I said that's what I want to do. I want to do that to people with music." It hasn't been a short road, but de Haas has become an acclaimed interpreter of popular songs, as well as a successful actor in shows like "Rent." He's at Lincoln Center's Allen Room at the Time Warner Center tonight (at 7:30 and 9:30), performing "The Songs of Stevie Wonder" in the Center's "American Songbook" series. He'll also return Feb. 23 for a "Songbook" show, "At Harlem's Height," featuring songs of Duke Ellington, Billy Strayhorn, Fats Waller and others.

With a father who was a jazz bassist and a mother who sang in a vocal trio, de Haas grew up surrounded by music. As a child, he says, he'd walk around the house singing "Sunny Side of the Street" or "God Bless the Child." He remembers being disappointed singing "Lift Every Voice" at school because it was not the electrifying Ray Charles version he knew from home.

The one thing his appreciation of songs hasn't done is get him to compose his own. "People tell me I should write," he says. "But at this point I'm still a closet writer. I have notebooks and tapes with ideas, but they aren't fully formed yet."

Meanwhile, de Haas has plenty to work with, including new songs like "Lost in the Wilderness," a Stephen Schwartz number he sang in the show "Children of Eden."

Like Lena Horne, he says, "I love exploring songs, seeing how they change for you as you get older and live with them. This is still what I want to do."