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February 2021
The golden age of the Hollywood musical coincided with the greatest era of American songwriting. Music-makers like Berlin, Gershwin, Porter, Kern, and Rodgers and Hart wrote brilliant songs and then shuffled them across the continent from theaters in New York to the film studios in California. The Vitaphone crackles of the first musical talkie traveled [...]
Find out moreIt was truly a “ragtime to riches” path chosen by the immigrant Russian Jew Israel Baline. A teen aged waif slumming an existence in the Bowery during the earliest years of the twentieth-century, Irving Berlin, as he was later known, began writing songs before he knew how to read music. A self-taught and rather pathetic [...]
Find out moreMarch 2021
Dilettante, hedonist, elitist, snob: Cole Porter was called all of them during his glittering yet troubled life. Whatever detractors may have said about him personally, Porter’s reputation as a musical genius has never been questioned. The lecture surveys Porter’s life on Broadway and in Hollywood, covering 40 years that produced 33 stage works and the [...]
Find out moreJuly 2021
Ira was known as “The Jeweler,” a songsmith whose exquisite craftsmanship allowed him to embed a seamless mosaic of words within the contour of a melodic line. And when his brother George sat at the piano, an endless assortment of tunes came “dripping from his fingers.” From their first hit tune in 1918, “The Real [...]
Find out moreDecember 2021
In this lively and engaging evening, pianist, raconteur, and American music specialist Robert Wyatt celebrates the lives and works of Rodgers and Hammerstein. Through original cast recordings, film clips, interviews, correspondence, and other primary materials furnished by The Library of Congress and The Rodgers and Hammerstein Organization, learn about the lives of these two icons [...]
Find out moreDuring their years together, the Beatles recorded and released 214 different songs and became the most significant band in history. Their musical style, a combination of pop ballads and traditional 1950s rock and roll, was eventually spiced with classical elements, Indian ragas, and psychedelic hard rock. Their genesis contributed to the evolution of pop music [...]
Find out moreJanuary 2022
In this lively and engaging evening, pianist, raconteur, and American music specialist Robert Wyatt celebrates the lives and works of Rodgers and Hammerstein. Through original cast recordings, film clips, interviews, correspondence, and other primary materials furnished by The Library of Congress and The Rodgers and Hammerstein Organization, learn about the lives of these two icons [...]
Find out moreThe golden age of the Hollywood musical coincided with the greatest era of American songwriting. Music-makers like Berlin, Gershwin, Porter, Kern, and Rodgers and Hart wrote brilliant songs and then shuffled them across the continent from theaters in New York to the film studios in California. The Vitaphone crackles of the first musical talkie traveled [...]
Find out moreMarch 2022
On Sept. 9, 1956, more than 60 million people witnessed a young entertainer with gyrating hips and a honey-coated baritone voice croon his way into national consciousness on The Ed Sullivan Show. His rubbery legs spread wide apart, head thrown carelessly back and mouth twitching, it was apparent that this man was different. With an [...]
Find out moreIn a career that spans five decades, John Williams has become one of America’s most accomplished and successful composers for film and for the concert stage. Mr. Williams has composed the music and served as music director for more than one hundred films. His 40-year artistic partnership with director Steven Spielberg has resulted in many [...]
Find out moreApril 2022
In the 1940s, America was making ready for, fighting in or helping the world heal from the ravages of World War II. Film entertainment was an elixir for the country’s heartaches and the eight major Hollywood studios cranked out over 550 musicals during the decade, films bursting with sumptuous production numbers, naïve plots and phenomenal [...]
Find out moreSpanning forty-five years of achievement with vaudeville, films, TV specials and voluminous concert extravaganzas, Judy Garland thrilled audiences who adored her stunning intellect. Whiz kid Frances Ethel Gump was twelve years old when she changed her name to Judy Garland in 1934. Louis Mayer began her enchantment the next year by signing her at MGM, [...]
Find out moreJune 2022
Enjoy your fantasies and remembrances as Robert Wyatt takes you through Judy Garland’s extraordinary life. Film clips will be abundant, starting with The Broadway Melody of 1938 and moving through 1944 blockbuster Meet Me in St. Louis, The Harvey Girls, Cole Porter’s gem-ridden The Pirate of 1948 and the sizzling A Star is Born, the [...]
Find out moreSeptember 2022
Enjoy your fantasies and remembrances as Robert Wyatt takes you through Judy Garland’s extraordinary life. Film clips will be abundant, starting with The Broadway Melody of 1938 and moving through 1944 blockbuster Meet Me in St. Louis, The Harvey Girls, Cole Porter’s gem-ridden The Pirate of 1948 and the sizzling A Star is Born, the [...]
Find out moreDecember 2022
The golden age of the Hollywood musical reached its zenith in the 1950s, a time when a new younger market, post-war affluence, middle-class values, the Korean War and rock and roll music changed the focus of the film industry. The major studios were blessed by an improved Technicolor process, a widescreen format and production designs [...]
Find out moreJanuary 2023
Light on his feet, Fred Astaire revolutionized the movie musical with his elegant and seemingly effortless dance style. He may have made dancing look easy, but he was a well-known perfectionist, and his work was the product of endless hours of practice. Astaire started performing as a child, partnering up with his older sister Adele. [...]
Find out moreLight on his feet, Fred Astaire revolutionized the movie musical with his elegant and seemingly effortless dance style. He may have made dancing look easy, but he was a well-known perfectionist, and his work was the product of endless hours of practice. Astaire started performing as a child, partnering up with his older sister Adele. [...]
Find out moreFilms created during the 1960s belong to the most creative era in cinema history, a time of tremendous social change, the Vietnam War, fashion, fads, rock ‘n’ roll and the acceleration of technological ingenuity. However, movie audiences were rapidly diminishing due to the dominance of the television industry and only 145 musicals were produced in [...]
Find out moreApril 2023
n a career that spans five decades, John Williams has become one of America’s most accomplished and successful composers for film and for the concert stage. Mr. Williams has composed the music and served as music director for more than one hundred films. His 40-year artistic partnership with director Steven Spielberg has resulted in many [...]
Find out moreIn a career that spans five decades, John Williams has become one of America’s most accomplished and successful composers for film and for the concert stage. Mr. Williams has composed the music and served as music director for more than one hundred films. His 40-year artistic partnership with director Steven Spielberg has resulted in many [...]
Find out moreJohann Sebastian Bach is considered to be the “father of Western music.” He not only excelled in composition but also masterminded a host of theoretical properties which allowed future composers to advance their own ideas. The most versatile of geniuses, Bach was a fine organist, a loving husband and father, and a creative thinker whose [...]
Find out moreMay 2023
Although his career covered less than two decades, and ended with his tragic death in 1937, his music endures. Join pianist and Gershwin-authority, Robert Wyatt, co-editor of Oxford University Press’ The George Gershwin Reader, in this lively lecture exploring Gershwin’s life and legacy. The program includes a chronology of the composer’s meteoric life, his 1924 [...]
Find out moreJune 2023
Stravinsky portrayed him as “a six-and-a-half-foot scowl,” a man who remained aloof and pensive while creating music that was anything but introspective. Certainly he was an enigma, both as an individual and as a composer who was equally gifted as a pianist and conductor. Rachmaninoff speculated about “chasing three hares,” wondering whether his inability to [...]
Find out moreSeptember 2023
American music specialist Robert Wyatt walks you through the lives of the Gershwin brothers, from their simple roots, through their Tin Pan Alley apprenticeship and to the glory years which proved to be so very short. Through original cast recordings, film clips, interviews, intimate home movies, correspondence and other primary materials furnished by The Library [...]
Find out moreOctober 2023
For over five decades he spun his words and music to be sung on the stages of Broadway theaters. Two other musical poets, Irving Berlin and Cole Porter, had crafted their musical dramas earlier in the century but Stephen Sondheim’s work is simply different: it transforms musical theater into psychodrama, exploring feelings and emotions in [...]
Find out moreDecember 2023
In a career that spans five decades, John Williams has become one of America’s most accomplished and successful composers for film and for the concert stage. Mr. Williams has composed the music and served as music director for more than one hundred films. His 40-year artistic partnership with director Steven Spielberg has resulted in many [...]
Find out moreAlthough blues music was sung as an oral tradition by enslaved people on Southern plantations, classic female blues emerged early in the 20th century as a mixture of traditional folk blues and urban theater music. Dazzling pioneers like Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, Memphis Minnie, and Mamie Smith catapulted the vocal form onto the world stage. [...]
Find out moreJanuary 2024
During a 43-year Hollywood career, Walter Elias Disney established himself and his products as an authentic part of Americana. Beginning his career as an advertising cartoonist in Kansas City, he relocated in Hollywood in 1923 where he created and marketed his first original animated cartoons. Mickey Mouse entered popular culture in 1928, followed by a [...]
Find out moreRecent Events
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