It’s hard to imagine a stage that legendary musician Harry Connick Jr. hasn’t performed on. But there’s an outstanding venue on his bucket list, and he’s about to cross it off. “My mother used to say she could die happy knowing that I played at Carnegie Hall,” Connick said on TODAY  May 11. When Connick was 10 years old, his mother was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. Knowing that performing at the New York landmark was something she dreamed of, Connick called the auditorium from his home in New Orleans and said, “My name’s Harry Connick, and I’m a piano player. I want to know if I can play there.” He was told that he had reached the box office and, no, they couldn’t help him. But at least he could tell his mom that he tried. To this day, Connick tells TODAY.com that he’s never stepped foot in the concert hall. But on May 22, he’ll make good on his mother’s wish and perform at Carnegie Hall, a once-in-a-lifetime show that Connick says has been decades in the making. “It’s almost legendary in my mind, because my mother being from New York and being a big music fan, that was the epitome of a performance space to her. So, I decided long ago that I would never go inside until it was a special occasion,” Connick says. “It’s been 45 years since I’ve wanted to play there and so I decided if I’m going to make it the first time, I’m not going to rehearse there, I’m not going to do anything,” he adds. “I’m just going to walk in, walk on the stage and go do it.” ‘My mother is everything to me’ Connick’s mom, Anita-Francis Livingston Connick, or “Babe” as she was known, would have turned 100 on May 22. She died in 1981, when Connick was 13. In the years since her death, Connick has become one of the most renowned artists in the world, releasing more than two dozen albums and winning three Grammys, including one for “When Harry Met Sally …” He’s also acted in blockbuster films like “Independence Day” and “The Iron Giant,” along with the television show “Will Grace.” “My mother is everything to me and formed who I am, even in that short amount of time,” he says. “To be able to honor her in this way on that night, it’s not going to get any better than that.” Harry Connick Jr. (right) pictured with his mother Anita-Francis Livingston Connick and sister Suzanna. Connick will take the stage for two concerts at Carnegie Hall on May 22 and 23, shows that were booked nearly seven years ago. “No performance I’ve ever done will come close to that and no performance after that,” he says. “I mean, it’s impossible.” Music Musicians 19 hours ago Ella Langley dominates ACM Awards and Cody Johnson wins entertainer of the year Does he expect to be emotional when he walks out on stage for the first time? “I spent a lot of time earlier in life anticipating feelings before they happen and it didn’t really get me anywhere,” he says. “If I thought about how I was going to feel, I’d be a wreck all the time because if you think about what I’m doing, for me, it’s impossibly emotional,” he adds. “It’s a night that’s dedicated to my hero and I’ve never gone in that room specifically until her 100th.” ‘Babe: Elaboratio’ Connick, who’s widely known for crooning jazz and big band favorites, says at the concert he’ll be performing “Babe: Elaboratio,” a three-movement orchestral piece he composed in honor of his beloved mom. “It’s really not a symphony. It’s more of a concerto because it’s for me as a soloist with a full orchestra and a big band,” Connick says. Harry Connick Jr. performs at New York’s Nederlander Theatre in 2019. The title, he explains, represents both his mother’s nickname and a humorous take on the word “elaborate.” “This whole piece is an elaboration of what I imagined her life to be, because I didn’t know her before I was born, and then I only knew her for 13 years after that,” Connick says. His mom was “not a fan of two-dollar words,” he recalls. “She was a lawyer, and she wasn’t into legalese,” he says. So, in a tongue-and-cheek nod to his mom’s preference for straight-shooting communication, Connick says he asked an editor friend to come up with an elaborate word for, well, elaborate. The result is “Elaboratio.” “Which is obnoxious,” he says. “My mother would have probably called it ‘Music for My Mother.’” But “elaborating” is exactly what he’s doing — not only in the orchestral piece, but also in an upcoming book of the same name, slated for release on Sept. 29. “Babe: Elaboratio A Tribute to My Mother,” a book by Harry Connick Jr., is set to be released on Sept. 29, 2026. Between the two, he hopes to tell the story of her life. “What I wanted to do was write a book going through every measure of the piece,” he says. “Not only telling about stories that my mother told me, but imagining what it would have been like for her, say, as a young woman who moved to Istanbul when she was in her mid 20s, because she had a sad home life, or what it was like being in New York City in the 1930s.” ‘I just try and be the best person I can be’ Ahead of his Carnegie Hall debut, Connick says he’s trying not to anticipate how’s he going to feel on that night. “I don’t live my life like that,” he says. “I’ll feel what I feel when I walk out there and if I’m happy or if I’m weeping or if I’m sobbing … it just doesn’t benefit me to think about that.” That in-the-moment mindset inspired another project. Connick says he’s written a yet-to-be-released book about mindfulness, encouraged by his three children: Georgia, 30, Kate, 28, and Charlotte, 23. Harry Connick Jr. with daughters (L to R) Georgia, Kate and Charlotte, along with wife Jill Goodacre (middle) at the Hollywood Walk of Fame ceremony in 2019. “People talk about mindfulness, zen and pragmatism and things like that, but they don’t really tell you what to do with that information. Like, you can sit here and be mindful, but what does that really mean? How does that manifest this stuff in terms of, in my case, creativity and productivity? So, the book is about specifically that,” Connick says. When it comes to parenting, he says he and wife Jill Goodacre try to avoid offering advice. “I’ve never been a fan of receiving unsolicited advice,” he says. “My parents were all about the discovery process and if I ran into trouble, they would be there, but words like ‘you should’ never really come out of my mouth.” Instead, he and Goodacre want their daughters to “do their thing.” “What we find is that we’re much more in tune with them as a result of that because, for me, if somebody’s saying, ‘This is what you should do,’ I’m not going to go to that person. I don’t want to hear that,” he says. “They’re extremely bright, very strong-willed with definitive perspectives on everything.” “I just try to be the best person I can be and love them as much as I can,” he adds. “And I find that the decisions that they make have been pretty incredible.” This story first appeared on TODAY.com. 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