Robert Wyatt

The Hollywood Musical: The 1960s
2021-02-16 10:00 - 11:30 (America/New_York) | Project Independence, 112 Exchange Street, Middlebury, VT, 05753
Films 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 the decade, compared to the 453 all-singing, all-dancing extravaganzas churned out in the 1930s.
Be entertained throughout an evening which features dazzling film clips of your favorite stars and a historical narrative by American music specialist, Robert Wyatt. Enjoy the emergence of Barbara Streisand, witness Julie Andrews transform from a nanny to a nun in only a year, and reserve a front row seat while drifting back to a time when admission to a movie house equaled a six-pack of beer!

Irving Berlin: The Last Troubadour
2021-02-24 18:30 - 20:15 | Smithsonian S. Dillon Ripley Center, 1100 Jefferson Dr SW, Washington, D.C., 20560
It 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 pianist, he morphed into a genuine musical icon by the age of 23 and remained the standard bearer for all songwriters until his death at the age of 101. Perhaps Jerome Kern describes it most succinctly: “Irving Berlin has no ‘place’ in American music—Irving Berlin IS American music.”

Cole Porter: Sophisticate of American Song
2021-03-16 18:30 - 20:15 | Smithsonian S. Dillon Ripley Center, 1100 Jefferson Dr SW, Washington, D.C., 20560
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 music for 23 films. Rare archival film clips and recording of original cast members, including Ethel Merman, Fred Astaire, Louis Armstrong, and Bing Crosby are featured, along with Porter himself singing and playing “You’re the Top”—which he was.
Through the use of a grand piano and a PowerPoint presentation, the audience will sway with the songs that people enjoy humming, masterworks like “Night and Day,” “Another Op’nin’, Another Show,” “Begin the Beguine,” “I Love Paris” and many, many more. American music specialist Robert Wyatt will walk you through Cole Porter’s dramatic and fascinating life.

A Salute to George and Ira Gershwin
2021-07-15 18:30 - 21:00 | Smithsonian Portrait Gallery, 8th and F Streets, NW , Washington, DC
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 American Folk Song (Is a Rag),” along with immortal blockbusters like “I Got Rhythm,” “Embraceable You” and “The Man I Love,” to the heart-wrenching “Love Is Here to Stay,” a song left unfinished by George’s death in July 1937, the brother’s legacy of over two dozen scores for Broadway and Hollywood helped establish musical comedy as an American art form.

An Enchanted Evening with Rodgers & Hammerstein
2021-12-08 18:30 - 20:30 | Smithsonian S. Dillon Ripley Center, 1100 Jefferson Dr SW, Washington, D.C., 20560
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 of the American musical, experience their great productions, and listen to their music which has kept the American public hopeful through wars, recessions, natural disasters, and political intrigue.

The Beatles: An Evening with the Fab Four
2021-12-13 19:00 - 21:00 | Florida Atlantic University, Barry and Florence Friedberg Auditorium, Boca Raton Campus, Boca Raton, FL, United States
During 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 into an art form, while their aura generously sweetened the counterculture of the 1960s. Let It Be, their twelfth and final album, was released just a month after the group’s break-up in 1970. Although their musical life existed for just a decade, the Beatles’ contribution to world music is inestimable.
Musical raconteur Robert Wyatt guides a “magical mystery tour” of the life and works of the Beatles spotlighting recording of timeless songs like “Hey Jude,” “Something,” “Yesterday,” “Strawberry Fields Forever,” “Help!,” “The Long and Winding Road,” and “A Day in the Life.” The evening abounds with clips from their five films, recording sessions, and interviews that showcase the individual personalities that collectively became known as the Fab Four.

The Beatles: An Evening with the Fab Four
2021-12-15 19:00 - 21:00 | Florida Atlantic University Jupiter Campus, 5353 Parkside Drive, Jupiter, FL, 33458, United States

An Enchanted Evening with Rodgers & Hammerstein
2022-01-10 19:00 - 21:00 | Florida Atlantic University, Barry and Florence Friedberg Auditorium, Boca Raton Campus, Boca Raton, FL, United States

The Hollywood Musical: Four Decades of Magic - Part 1
2022-01-11 19:00 - 21:00 | Florida Atlantic University Jupiter Campus, 5353 Parkside Drive, Jupiter, FL, 33458, United States
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 in the opposite direction: from the Hollywood sound stages of Warner Bros. to its 1927 world premiere in Manhattan, where audiences heard Al Jolson speak his prophetic line, “Wait a minute, wait a minute…you ain’t heard nothin’ yet!” The sensation created by The Jazz Singer began four decades of melodious invention as the Hollywood musical dominated the landscape of the American film industry. This first of a four-session series pays tribute to the great musicals of the 1930s.

A Tribute to a King: Elvis Presley
2022-03-09 19:00 - 21:00 | Florida Atlantic University, Barry and Florence Friedberg Auditorium, Boca Raton Campus, Boca Raton, FL, United States
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 onstage persona that magnified unbridled sensuality and a versatile musical style which drew from rock and roll, gospel, blues, country and pop, Elvis Aaron Presley exuded charms that would make him the best-selling solo artist in the history of popular music.

A Magician with Music: John Williams
2022-03-10 19:00 - 21:00 | Coral Lakes, 12751 El Clair Ranch Road, Boyton Beach, FL, 33437, United States
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 of Hollywood’s most acclaimed and successful films, including Schindler’s List, E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, Jaws, Jurassic Park, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, four Indiana Jones film and Saving Private Ryan. He has received five Academy Awards and 50 Oscar nominations, making him the Academy’s most-nominated living person and the second-most nominated person in the history of the Oscars.

Gershwin, by George!
2022-03-22 14:00 - 15:30 | University of Vermont, 40 Pleasant Street, Springfield, VT, 40 Pleasant Street, Springifled, VT
Join pianist and Gershwin authority Robert Wyatt, co-editor of Oxford University Press’ The George Gershwin Reader, in this lively program exploring George Gershwin’s life and legacy. The evening includes live performances of the solo version of Rhapsody in Blue, early and unpublished music, the piano improvisations and other Gershwin hits. Rare film footage obtained from the Gershwin family is projected, along with unpublished photographs of the composer and his friends. Archival recordings of his 1932 – 33 radio programs, Music by Gershwin, are also featured.

Bluegrass Music
2022-04-12 10:30 - 12:00 | Project Independence, 112 Exchange Street, Middlebury, VT, 05753
Bluegrass, sometimes called the “jazz of country music,” evolved from the string band style developed by Bill Monroe and his Blue Grass Boys in the late 1930s. The sound is characterized by masterful, often improvisational, instrumental performances combined with distinctive vocals and harmonies. A native of Kentucky, Monroe named his band after the Bluegrass State. He
merged old-timey mountain music with blues and gospel tunes. Over the next 50 plus years, Monroe performed with countless musicians who served “apprenticeships” as Blue Grass Boys, then left to start their own groups. By the 1960s, the music was known as bluegrass.

The Hollywood Musicals Part II: the 1940s
2022-04-19 16:00 - 17:30 | Florida Atlantic University Jupiter Campus, 5353 Parkside Drive, Jupiter, FL, 33458, United States
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 music. Advances in film technology had heightened the dramatic appeal of the industry and by 1946, 80 million people went to theaters every week. Hollywood stars became generators of patriotism and nostalgia and their audiences adored them.

Climbing Over the Rainbow: Judy Garland
2022-04-20 13:30 - 16:30 | Residences at MorseLife, 4847 David S. Mack Drive, West Palm Beach, FL, 33417, United States
Spanning 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, and enrolling his “little hunchback” in the Metro school with starlets Elizabeth Taylor, Lana Turner and Ava Gardner. She also intensified barbiturate and amphetamine addiction and insecurity challenges as stardom surged with nine Andy Hardy films with Mickey Rooney. She expanded her gleam in 1939 when both “The Wizard of Oz” and “Babes in Arms” were released, as only three decades of stardom and struggle awaited “America’s Sweetheart.”

John Williams: Magician of Music
2022-06-07 10:30 - 12:00 | ESI, 112 Exchange Street, Middlebury, VT

Climbing Over the Rainbow: Judy Garland
2022-06-16 18:30 - 20:30 | Smithsonian Dillon Ripley Center, 1100 Jefferson Dr SW, Washington, D.C., DC, United States
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 1954 masterwork which became her last bravura film. TV specials like The Judy Garland Show (1962) with Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra, the specials that featured Robert Goulet still basking from Camelot and, of course, the prized duos with daughter Liza Minnelli, will stimulate your thoughts about “America’s Sweetheart.”

Climbing Over the Rainbow: Judy Garland
2022-08-15 15:00 - 16:30 | The Gables at East Mountain, 200 Gables Place, Rutland, VT, 05701, United States

Climbing Over the Rainbow: Judy Garland
2022-09-13 14:30 - 15:30 | Residence at Otter Creek, 50 Lodge Road, Middlebury, VT, 05753

The Brothers Gershwin
2022-09-15 13:30 - 15:00 | University of Vermont, Greg Brown Lodge, St, Albans, VT, 05478
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 of Congress, the Museum of the City of New York and the Rare Documents Collection at the New York Public Library, learn about the lives of these two icons of the American musical, experience their greatest productions, and listen to their music which is as poignant and beloved now as it was during their lifetimes.

Sergei Rachmaninoff: Giant of Romanticism
2022-10-11 10:30 - 12:00 | ESI, 112 Exchange Street, Middlebury, VT
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.

Lerner & Loewe: Musical Champagne
2022-10-27 18:30 - 20:30 | Smithsonian Dillon Ripley Center, 1100 Jefferson Dr SW, Washington, D.C., DC, United States
In temperament and background, Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe were wildly dissimilar, but the two accommodated their often tempestuous relationship to generate brilliantly crafted musicals such as Brigadoon, Paint Your Wagon, My Fair Lady, Gigi, and Camelot.
Learn the origins of enduring songs like Almost Like Being in Love, The Night They Invented Champagne, I Could Have Danced All Night, If Ever I Would Leave You, and They Call the Wind Maria; enjoy clips from the film adaptations of the stage productions; explore personal correspondence; and probe the dual genius of this Viennese composer and silver-spooned New York lyricist in a lively evening led by pianist and American music specialist Robert Wyatt.

Lerner and Loewe: Musical Champagne
2022-12-05 19:00 - 20:30 | Florida Atlantic University, Barry and Florence Friedberg Auditorium, Boca Raton Campus, Boca Raton, FL, United States

The Enigmatic Life of Frank Sinatra
2022-12-06 13:30 - 15:00 | Residences at MorseLife, 4847 David S. Mack Drive, West Palm Beach, FL, 33417, United States
Sinatra’s career took flight from the Rustic Cabin in Englewood Cliff, NJ, when trumpeter Harry James rescued him from the ranks of singing waiters in 1939. Yet not until Tommy Dorsey coaxed him into his band later that year did Sinatra begin to soar as the idol of the bobby-soxers. Within three years, he led the male singer polls in both Billboard and Downbeat magazine and by 1946 his discs for Columbia Records were selling 10 million copies a year.
The evening’s fare will also sample Sinatra’s forty-year movie career. Teaming with Gene Kelly in two early films, Anchors Away and On the Town, Sinatra appeared in fifty-six films including From Here to Eternity, in which he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. Enjoy clips from those films and others including Guys and Dolls with Marlon Brando, Pal Joey co-starring Rita Heyworth and Kim Novak, The Manchurian Candidate and two of Cole Porter’s movie scores, Can-Can and High Society, which paired Sinatra with his childhood idol, Bing Crosby.

The Hollywood Musicals Part 3: the 1950s
2022-12-06 19:00 - 20:30 | Florida Atlantic University Jupiter Campus, 5353 Parkside Drive, Jupiter, FL, 33458, United States
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 that appealed to an audience eager for the escape and exhilaration.

Steps in Time: Fred Astaire
2023-01-09 15:00 - 16:30 | Florida Atlantic University, Barry and Florence Friedberg Auditorium, Boca Raton Campus, Boca Raton, FL, United States
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. The two toured the vaudeville circuit before making it to Broadway in 1917. Among their many productions the brother-sister team starred in the 1927 George and Ira Gershwin musical Funny Face. For all his early success, though, career in the movies eluded Astaire. He had done a screen test, but he failed to attract any interest. A studio executive wrote at the time, “Can’t sing. Can’t act. Slightly balding. Can dance a little.” He eventually appeared in 36 musical films.

Steps in Time: Fred Astaire
2023-01-10 13:30 - 16:30 | Residences at MorseLife, 4847 David S. Mack Drive, West Palm Beach, FL, 33417, United States

The Hollywood Musical: Part IV - The 1960s
2023-01-10 19:00 - 20:30 | Florida Atlantic University Jupiter Campus, 5353 Parkside Drive, Jupiter, FL, 33458, United States

Women Sing the Blues
2023-03-05 10:30 - 12:00 | West Falmouth Public Library, 575 West Falmouth Highway, West Falmouth, MA, 02574, 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. Appearing onstage with pianists or small jazz combos, dazzling pioneers like Ma Rainey, Betsy 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, the blues grew as one of the most popular forms of jazz. And then Ethel Waters, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday changed everything.

A Musician with Magic: John Williams
2023-04-04 13:30 - 16:00 | Residences at MorseLife, 4847 David S. Mack Drive, West Palm Beach, FL, 33417, United States
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 of Hollywood’s most acclaimed and successful films, including Schindler’s List, E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, Jaws, Jurassic Park, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, four Indiana Jones films and Saving Private Ryan, to name just a few.
In this lively evening, pianist, raconteur, and American music specialist Robert Wyatt celebrates the life and works of John Williams. Fasten your seat belts…it’s going to be a fabulous ride!
