Robert Wyatt

Porgy and Bess: A Folk Opera
2024-02-01 18:30 - 21:00 (America/New_York) | Smithsonian Dillon Ripley Center, 1100 Jefferson Dr SW, Washington, D.C., DC, United States
Porgy and Bess, “an American folk opera,” opened in New York City on Oct. 10, 1935, and ran for 124 performances before closing in financial ruin.
George Gershwin, his brother Ira, and the author and co-librettist, DuBose Heyward, had crafted an intense musical drama that ultimately spawned a furious debate about authenticity, musical style and form, racial prejudice, and national identity. But the music and lyrics have survived for almost 90 years and the work’s stature is unsurpassed in the American operatic repertoire.
Explore this pivotal work from its beginnings to its revivals, in a lively evening led by Gershwin scholar and pianist Robert Wyatt.

Women Sing the Blues
2024-04-01 16:00 - 17:30 | Florida Atlantic University, Barry and Florence Friedberg Auditorium, Boca Raton Campus, Boca Raton, FL, United States
Although 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. With
new technologies in sound recording coupled with the advent of national radio broadcasts, blues singers Ethel Waters, Ella
Fitzgerald, and Billie Holiday took blues to the next level. And the list goes on and on. Dr. Wyatt will trace the growth of the blues
as one of America’s most popular forms of jazz using audio and visual clips from the 1920s to the present. The music is glorious.

Sergei Rachmaninoff: Giant of Romanticism
2024-04-02 13:30 - 16:30 | Residences at MorseLife, 4847 David S. Mack Drive, West Palm Beach, FL, 33417, United States
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 balance his three passions might diminish his reputation. Yet in 2022, one year shy of the 150th anniversary of his birth, his legacy is not only intact but his works remain symbolic of all that is alluring in Western classical music.
Through a presentation highlighted video presentations, archival recording (Rachmaninoff cut more than 350 discs, both acoustic and electronic) as well as recent recordings, experience the genius of one of the greatest composers of symphonic, choral and piano music.

Sergei Rachmaninoff: Giant of Romanticism
2024-04-02 19:00 - 20:30 | Florida Atlantic University Jupiter Campus, 5353 Parkside Drive, Jupiter, FL, 33458, United States

The King of Jazz: Louis Armstrong
2024-04-20 10:00 - 11:30
One of the earliest trumpet sensations, Louis Armstrong pioneered the groundwork which shifted the newly founded jazz from collective improvisation to solo performance. His distinctive singing voice was also used as an improvisatory tool, and we owe scat singing to his list of inventions. The pairing of his unique instrumental gift and a charismatic personality won him universal and eternal appeal as the “Satchmo,” king of all jazz aficionados.
