Two years after wrapping a six-season run on “Glee” as Rachel Berry, the star of the fictional William McKinley High School show choir, actress and singer Lea Michele sings in Boston to promote her second solo studio album, “Places,” due out April 28.
“I’ve been working on this album for three years now. When I made my first, I was doing ‘Glee.’ Now I have time to go out and promote the album and do concerts,” said Michele, 30. Her debut solo album, “Louder,” went to number one on iTunes and to the Top 5 of the Billboard Top 200 Albums chart when it was released in March 2014.
Michele co-wrote five of the 11 tracks on the new record, which she will perform May 3 when her tour “An Intimate Eveing with Lea Michele,” lands in Boston at the Boch Center Shubert Theatre.
“It’s a vocalist album and an homage to the women I listened to growing up, including Barbra Streisand and Celine Dion, but it’s all me, too,” Michele said. “An album is a full body of art – with consistency and fluidity. There are some pop songs on this one, of course, but they’re Lea Michele songs. I want this album to stand the test of time and last forever.”
To help achieve that goal Michele said she chose music that she said she believes will have life outside the recording studio.
“I was born on the stage. I wanted songs I could also do live. They had to be able to transfer to the stage,” Michele said.
A native of the Bronx, New York, Michele was just 8 years old when she joined the cast of Broadway’s “Les Miserables” in 1995 as Young Cosette. In 1998, she starred in “Ragtime” and also the the 2004 revival of “Fiddler on the Roof” and “Spring Awakening” in 2006. She is also the author of the books “Brunette Ambition” and “You First.”
Michele earned Emmy, Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild award for her part on “Glee.” She is no stranger to music that stands up well in more than one medium. Key to the success of “Glee” were the covers that cast members did each week of contemporary and classic pop songs, rock anthems and Broadway show tunes. Multiple soundtrack albums from “Glee” followed, garnering more than 20 top-40 hits.
Michele played Boston’s TD Garden on the “Glee Live!” tour in May 2010 and is performing music from the series on her current tour, which launched April 21 in London.
“I’m a ‘Glee’ fan, too. I love the show and I still watch it. I put together a new medley of ‘Glee’ songs just last night,” Michelle said. “My mom came to the rehearsal and she was crying as I performed them. She said, ‘I haven’t heard you do those songs in a long time. Your voice sounds so beautiful on them.’”
Michele recently reunited with “Glee” co-creator Ryan Murphy to play Hester Ulrich for “Scream Queens.”
And while she enjoyed selecting material for her new album, Michele acknowledges that choosing a name for the album was another story.
“I do not procrastinate. I do my business and I stay on top of everything. The album title was the only thing I didn’t get to. The record label finally said, ‘Lea, you have to come up with a name by tomorrow.’ Stevie Nicks is a good friend and she’s also kind of my spirit animal, so I sat down, listened to Fleetwood Mac, and looked at this amazing art book and personal note that Stevie gave me. And I said, ‘Stevie, I am praying to you for help,’” recalls Michele, with a laugh.
“For me, this album is about coming back to my roots and embracing the theatrical side of my background. On Broadway, you get 30-, 15-, and 5-minute calls before you hear ‘Places everyone.’ So for me, ‘places’ means show time. So I was thinking about that and also all the places I’ve been, and the ups and downs that have led me to where I am today, which is a very exciting place to be.”
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