University of Richmond UR Scholarship Repository Music Department Concert Programs Music 10-20-1997 Nice Work If You Can Get It Department of Music, University of Richmond Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.richmond.edu/all-music-programs Part of the Music Performance Commons Recommended Citation Department of Music, University of Richmond, "Nice Work If You Can Get It" (1997). Music Department Concert Programs. 653. https://scholarship.richmond.edu/all-music-programs/653 This Program is brought to you for free and open access by the Music at UR Scholarship Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Music Department Concert Programs by an authorized administrator of UR Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. October 20, 1997 at 8pm iii Modlin Center for the Arts Camp Concert Hall Booker Hall of Music ICM Artists, Ltd. presents JOAN MORRIS WILLIAM BOLCOM Mezzo-Soprano Pianist NICE WORK IF YOU CAN GET IT: Songs to Celebrate the 100th Birthdays of George Gershwin and Vincent Youmans Ms. Morris and Mr. Bolcom will announce the program from the stage, to be chosen from the following: George Gershwin: I'll Build a Stairway to Paradise How Long Has This Been Goin' On? Fascinating Rhythm Someone to Watch Over Me They All Laughed Yankee Doodle Blues Love is Here to Stay Vincent Youmans: More Than You Know Flying Down to Rio Great Day Time on My Hands Music Makes Me Rise 'N' Shine Like He Loves Me About the Artists Bolcom & Morris Since their first appearance together Canada, and Europe. twenty-three years ago, Pulitzer-prize Highlights from recent seasons in­ winning composer and pianist William clude a 1993 debut in London's Wigmore Bolcom and mezzo-soprano Joan Morris Hall, a concert in honor of the Consuls­ have captivated audiences across the na­ General at Roberts College in Istanbul in tion and abroad. Heralded as "one of the August 1988 and, in December of the great musical collaborations of our time" same year, a concert at the American uni­ by the Boston Globe, this husband-and­ versity in Cairo. In July 1989 the duo wife duo is highly acclaimed for its finely appeared under the aegis of Musicus gauged and vividly imagined interpre­ Consentus at a sold-out concert in Flo­ tations of American popular songs from rence, Italy, in the beautiful 15th-century the late nineteenth century through the cloister of the Church of Santo Spirito. At twenties and thirties, as well as the latest the invitation of the State Department, songs by Leiber and Stoller and Mr. they performed concerts in Moscow in Bolcom's own cabaret songs with poet­ June 1991. lyricist Arnold Weinstein. October 1993 marked the 20th anni­ Over the past two decades, Bolcom versary of the duo's first appearance to­ & Morris have won a wide following gether. In celebration of that milestone, with their expansive repertoire, comple­ they performed in a concert with Max mented by the sophisticated yet unpre­ Morath at Danny Kaye Playhouse of tentious stage presence audiences have Hunter College in New York. In May of come to expect. Champions of the Ameri­ the same year, they were featured on can popular vocal literature, they have "CBS Sunday Morning" with Charles brought this genre to some of the most Kuralt. Two sold-out performances in renowned venues in the United States, August 1994 at Mohawk Trail Concerts 17 in Charlemont, Mass., marked their first vocal soloist performance on a classical collaboration with the tenor Robert album. Among other discs are two col­ White. lections of cabaret songs, Black Max and In February 1995 the duo returned Lime Jello--An American Cabaret, both re­ to Alice Tully Hall in a program featur­ corded live at Kerrytown Concert Hall in ing songs by Charles Ives, Jerry Leiber Ann Arbor, as well as anthologies of and Mike Stoller. Their triumphant re­ Gershwin, Berlin, Rodgers & Hart and turn performances at Jordan Hall in Bos­ Kern for Nonesuch, RCA and Arabesque. ton and at the Metropolitan Museum of In 1988, their recording of 26 Cole Porter Art in New York, highlighting their 1994- songs, Night and Day, was released on 95 season, were met with enthusiastic Omega, followed by Let's Do It, also on critical accolades. Omega, recorded live at an Aspen Music Together they have recorded seven­ Festival concert in 1989. They recently teen albums to date, the first of which is recorded a Vincent Youmans album with their best-selling After the Ball-A Treasury Robert White, due for release in 1996. of Turn-of-the-Century Popular Songs Mr. Bolcom and Ms. Morris reside (Nonesuch, 1974), for which Ms. Morris in Ann Arbor, where they both teach at received a Grammy nomination for best the University of Michigan. PROGRAM NOTES Rebecca Yarowsky I The 1920s and '30' s ushered in a new To the very end of his life, Gershwin was age: one that emanated vitality, sexual avidly involved in the study of counter­ freedom and a reckless, impetuous aban­ point, harmony and orchestration. don. The century was young and the en­ Gershwin, a story goes, once approached tire world, still reeling from the devasta­ Stravinsky with a request to study with tion of World War I, seemed to have de­ him. However, upon learning that cided to live for the moment-with little, Gershwin's annual salary at the time was if any, concern for the future. George $250,000, Stravinsky promptly suggested Gershwin and Vincent Youmans, Jr. were that Gershwin might have something to composers who, through their music, ar­ teach him. ticulated the spirit of the age, supplying Almost from the day of his arrival a sometimes jazzy, sometimes bittersweet, in America from Russia, Morris always original tempo to that bold, heady Gershovitz (Gershwin's father) was in­ pace. volved in a number of business schemes. During his tragically brief lifetime, These included serving as the proprietor George Gershwin established a new le­ of a bakery, a restaurant, a Russian bath, gitimacy for American music. His evident a Turkish baths, a cigar store and a pool genius in a variety of genres, including parlor. Morris held a less-than-approv­ the music of Tin Pan Alley and Broadway ing view of his musical son and, in a pos­ as well as repertoire for opera and the sible attempt at denigration, preferred his concert stage raised American popular malapropism "Fashion on the River" to music to the level of an art form. Through the actual title of George and Ira's "Fas­ his dedication to the genres of jazz and cinating Rhythm." song, Gershwin introduced a vibrant mu­ While his brother, Ira, was thought­ sical vocabulary to a world that had ful, shy and bookish, George was street­ viewed "serious" music as the singular wise, aggressive and more fond of province of those composers-primarily hockey and stick ball than he was of aca­ European-who dedicated themselves to demic pursuits. In 1910, the family pur­ the creation of symphonies and concerti. chased an upright piano, hoping Ira would study music. But it was George derstanding of language coupled with who displayed an immediate and facile George's keen musicality produced songs aptitude for the instrument. He later ex­ of timeless appeal. plained, "Studying the piano made a The fame that Gershwin earned good boy out of a bad one. It took the through his songwriting failed to satisfy piano to tone me down.... " After sev­ the more complex creative urge to pro­ eral mediocre teachers had failed to teach duce a "classical" work. Bandleader Paul young George anythi~g new, Charles Whiteman, recognizing Gershwin's need Hambitzer entered his life. Hambitzer for serious application, invited him to would soon after write to his sister, "I contribute to the bandleader's "Experi­ have a new pupil who will make his ment in Modem Music" performances. mark in music if anybody will. The boy The result was "Rhapsody in Blue." The is a genius, without a doubt; he's crazy concert, at which the work premiered on about music and he can't wait until it's February 12, 1924, was attended by time to take his lessons. No watching the Toscanini, Stravinsky and Rachmaninoff. clock for this boy.... I believe I can make Rhapsody in Blue was an overnight sensa­ something of him." Hambitzer encour­ tion, prompting commissions that re­ aged his charge to develop the technique sulted in the Concerto in F and An Ameri­ of active listening and the two often at­ can in Paris. In 1932, OJThee I Sing became tended classical performances together. the first musical to win a Pulitzer prize in At concerts, "I listened not only with my drama. Gershwin's folk opera, Porgy and ears," Gershwin wrote, "but with my Bess (lyrics by DuBose Heyward and Ira nerves, my mind, my heart. I had listened Gershwin), an innovative treatment of the so earnestly that I became saturated with genre; its music remains as moving to­ the music ..... Then I went home and day as it was over 60 years ago. In June listened in memory. I sat at the piano and of 1937, Gershwin began experiencing repeated the motifs." frequent dizzy spells. A brain tumor was In 1914, Gershwin abandoned discovered; a month later, Gershwin was school altogether and took a $15-a-week dead. job as a song plugger with Remick's, a Vincent Millie Youmans, Jr. was music publisher located in Tin Pan Al­ born in New York City--only a day be­ ley. Ira later described George's early em­ fore George Gershwin--on September 27, ployment.