The speaker and musicians who brought you
Mingling with the Old-Time Throng: Love Songs for New York in 2009 return with good cheer from one of America's most beloved songwriters, Ira Gershwin. The first lyricist to be awarded a Pulitzer Prize (for Of Thee I Sing, 1932), Gershwin was born in 1896 and began collaborating with his already-famous brother George in 1918. Together they created more than twenty classic scores for stage and screen, including Lady, Be Good! (originally starring Fred and Adele Astaire), Oh Kay! (for Gertrude Lawrence), Strike Up the Band (with Ethel Merman), Girl Crazy, Shall We Dance, and, with DuBose Heyward, Porgy and Bess. Ira also wrote with Harold Arlen on A Star is Born, Kurt Weill on Lady in the Dark, and Jerome Kern on Cover Girl, among others.
This event will introduce Gershwin's monumental work in its context from Broadway to Hollywood, with sung examples including "'S Wonderful," "They All Laughed," "Long Ago and Far Away," and "Love Is Here to Stay".
Michael Lasser is the co-author (with Philip Furia) of
America's Songs: The Stories Behind the Songs of Broadway, Hollywood, and Tin Pan Alley. He is well known as the host of the nationally syndicated public radio program Fascinatin' Rhythm, winner of the 1994 George Foster Peabody Award. The Peabody citation praised the show for letting "our treasury of popular tunes speak (and sing) for itself with sparkling commentary tracing the contributions of the composers and performers to American society."
Sara Holliday holds a degree in Vocal Performance from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and has performed extensively in musical theater and opera with the New Punctuation Army theater company in Manhattan and the Gilbert & Sullivan Light Opera Company of Long Island, among others.
Shad Olsen is a graduate of the American Musical and Dramatic Academy. He has performed in many operas, musicals, and plays Off-Off Broadway as well as in his native Minnesota. He is the book author and lyricist for the musical The Man in the Iron Mask, which premiered at Chelsea Studios in 2005.
Brenna Sage holds a degree from Hunter College. She primarily works as a musical director for theatrical productions but has credits as an accompanist, actor, dancer, singer, vocal impressionist, drummer, multi-instrumentalist, composer, choir director, orchestral conductor, choral arranger and orchestrator, music copyist, sound designer, midi recording engineer, voiceover artist, radio dj, club dj, and church organist, as well as a graphic and web designer.
This event is generously supported by the estate of Marian O. Naumburg.
