"Closer Than Ever," the award-winning two-act musical revue that just opened for its Hawaii premiere at Manoa Valley Theatre, was created by a songwriting team you may not recognize but have probably heard: lyricist Richard Maltby Jr. and composer David Shire.

Maltby and Shire don’t have the name recognition of Rodgers and Hammerstein, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Stephen Sondheim, or Stephen Schwartz, but they are well known in the music world.

Artists such as Maltby and Shire make it clear that the most vibrant, interesting music written today is in film, television and stage, so if you love good music and want to know where contemporary music is headed, don’t miss "Closer Than Ever."

"Closer Than Ever" is a "bookless musical," a series of vignettes unified by their emotional progression. And it’s a chamber musical, with only five singer-actors and a band consisting of piano and bass, but it is precisely its size that makes the songs so intimate. Even sitting amid an audience, you feel as though the songs are sung to you an experience both individual and shared.

MVT provided a perfect venue, with small-club-style seating and setting: "Mama Wakefield’s Always Good Music" splashed across the back, a small asymmetrical stage, and a collage background with built-in props.

Director Kip Wilborn, musical director-pianist Melina Lillios, choreographer Harmony Sayward Turner and the design team delivered entertainment in a tightly wrought package. If you can tear your attention away, it’s fun to notice the sets, lighting, staging, choreography, costumes, etc. but the riveting performances will hold your focus.

Cast members Alison Aldcroft and Marion Bienvenu-Callais were outstanding, each delivering memorable solos. Jazz-style mezzo Aldcroft was captivating in "You Want to be My Friend?" and "Miss Byrd"; while Broadway-style soprano Bienvenu-Callais was hilarious in "The Bear, the Tiger, the Hamster, and the Mole," then wrenching in "Patterns."

Buz Tennet, a dark baritone trained in opera mixed with musical theater, delivered Maltby’s paean to his musician father in "If I Sing," eliciting enthusiastic applause from the audience. And in "What Am I Doin’?" light tenor Guy Merola beautifully morphed a long-held note on "love" from the nasal mimicry of old men to the shimmering warmth of a young man in love.

Miguel Paekukui, who has a light, warm baritone voice and stepped in for quintets and as the third father in "Fathers of Fathers," had his moment in the spotlight in "There," a comic duet with Aldcroft that explored every conceivable meaning of the word.

Each vignette was a carefully crafted art song with nuances and innuendos that cannot be conveyed here by mere words. The songs were funny, touching, cynical, crazy, sad, hopeful but all very challenging.

"Closer Than Ever" should give young artists some sense of the skills required to make it on Broadway: highly trained voices, with wide ranges and great flexibility in tone and style of course, but also the ability to bring each role, each song alive so that the audience lives vicariously within it.

On piano, Lillios set a lively pace, both accompanying and driving the show while expertly navigating Shire’s demanding score. Derek Higashi was a wizard on bass and joined Aldcroft on stage for an endearing voice-bass duet in "Back on Base" (bass base get it?).

"Closer Than Ever" was a terrific show, a delightfully entertaining evening that ended with a well-deserved standing ovation. The audience exited debating which songs were their favorites and feeling "stronger than ever, clearer than ever, closer than ever to you."

Ruth O. Bingham received her doctorate in musicology from Cornell University and has been a reviewer for more than 25 years.