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Wichita Symphony Orchestra Gershwin’s Magic Key Young People’s Concerts January 26-28, 2016 Family Concert January 30, 2016 George Gershwin (September 26, 1898 – July 11, 1937) was an American composer and pianist. Gershwin's compositions spanned both popular and classical genres, and his most popular melodies are widely known. Among his best-known works are the orchestral compositions Rhapsody in Blue (1924) and An American in Paris (1928) as well as the opera Porgy and Bess (1935). He began his career as a song plugger in a music store on Tin Pan Alley (played songs for people to decide if they would buy the song sheet), but soon started composing Broadway theatre works with his brother Ira Gershwin. Ira wrote the lyrics/words while George wrote the music. He moved to Paris to study with Nadia Boulanger, where he began to compose An American in Paris. After returning to New York City, he wrote Porgy and Bess with Ira and the author DuBose Heyward. Porgy and Bess is now considered one of the most important American operas of the twentieth century. In his jazz compositions he captured music from immigrants so not to lose that rich music, the voice of the American soul. Gershwin moved to Hollywood and composed numerous film scores until his death in 1937 from a brain tumor. Gershwin's compositions have been adapted for use in many films and for television, and several became jazz standards recorded in many variations. Many celebrated singers and musicians have covered his songs. The Roaring Twenties is a term for the 1920’s in the Western world. It was a period of sustained economic prosperity with a distinctive cultural edge in the United States, Canada and Western Europe, particularly in major cities such as New York, Montreal, Chicago, Detroit, Paris, Berlin, London and Los Angeles. Americans became optimistic about the future. Normalcy returned to politics after World War I, jazz music blossomed, the flapper redefined modern womanhood (short skirts, short hair) and Art Deco peaked. The era saw the large-scale use of automobiles, telephones, motion pictures, radio, electricity, refrigeration, air conditioning; commercial, passenger, and freight aviation; unprecedented industrial growth, accelerated consumer demand and aspirations, plus significant changes in lifestyle and culture. Skyscrapers emerged. The media focused on celebrities, especially sports heroes and movie stars, as cities rooted for their home teams and filled the new palatial cinemas and gigantic sports stadiums. In most major countries women won the right to vote. The following information may be used to help prepare the students for what will be presented in the concert and how George Gershwin came to write Rhapsody in Blue. The Wichita Symphony will perform excerpts of his most famous, the list can be found at the end of this document. The selections can be downloaded from this Dropbox link: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/bwvolrglxt5p4ds/AADg0xPtjI1UIEUEKcQkEB-2a?dl=0 The concert will begin on Tin Pan Alley. Tin Pan Alley is the name given to the 20 music stores that held music publishers and songwriters in the late 19th century and early 20th century. The name originally referred to a specific place: West 28th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues in Manhattan. The start of Tin Pan Alley is usually dated to about 1885, when a number of music publishers set up shop in the same district of Manhattan. The end of Tin Pan Alley is less clear cut. Some date it to the start of the Great Depression in the 1930’s when the phonograph and radio replaced sheet music as the driving force of American popular music, while others consider Tin Pan Alley to have continued into the 1950’s when earlier styles of American popular music were upstaged by the rise of rock & roll, for which the Brill Building served much the same role as Tin Pan Alley had. The origins of the name "Tin Pan Alley" are unclear. One account claims that it was an offensive reference to the sound of many pianos resembling the banging of tin pans. Another version claims the name stemmed from the way that songwriters modified their pianos so that they had a more percussive sound. After many years, the term came to refer to the U.S. music industry in general. The story will use imagination, ask the students to close their eyes while you tell them a story. Select music to help them to imagine they are somewhere, like a Yankees game or the top of the Empire State Building or Central Park or somewhere of your choosing. Throughout the story they sneak in many titles or lyrics to Gershwin’s music! Sounds around us inspire music. Offer examples of sounds from our everyday life that resemble music, ask them for others. Or following the concert ask them to list examples they heard. Thunder: drums Sun: violins Birds flying: flutes Winds: woodwinds Rhythm of a train How can music influence our emotions? Sad, happy, angry. Compare a skyscraper to an orchestra: How is what an architect does with stone and steel like what a composer does with a whole orchestra. George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue is compared to the skyscraper of American music. After the concert, ask the students to list everyday sounds they heard in the music. In an imaginary visit they are at The Statue of Liberty on Ellis Island and read the inscription: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!” Music unites us all. Musical Selections to be heard 1. Overture from Catfish Row: Symphonic Suite in Five Parts: Movement I 2. Swanee 3. Fugue subject from Catfish Row: Symphonic Suite in Five Parts: Movement I 4. “I Got Plenty O’Nuttin” from Catfish Row: Symphonic Suite in Five Parts: Movement II 5. “Strike Up The Band” 6. “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” 7. “I’ll Build a Stairway to Paradise” 8. “Nice Work If You Can Get It” 9. “Oh, You Beautiful Doll” (Ayer) & “Baby Face” 10. “Rialto Ripples” 11. Second Rhapsody (New York Rhapsody) 12. “Promenade” 13. An American in Paris 14. “Summertime” & “Bess, You Is My Woman Now” from Catfish Row: Symphonic Suite in Five Parts: Movements I & II 15. “Oh Lord, I’m On My Way” from Catfish Row: Symphonic Suite in Five Parts: Movement V 16. Concerto in F: Movement III 17. Medley from “Oh, Kay!” 18. “Second Prelude” (Blue Lullaby) 19. Cuban Overture 20. “Fascinating Rhythm” 21. Rhapsody in Blue .
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