While it was never particularly successful, George Gershwin’s 1922 one-act “jazz-opera” Blue Monday played an important role in bridging the gap between his popular style and classical compositions. This post—the final installment of our three-part series devoted to Blue Monday—explores just what a “jazz-opera” might be and delves deeper into the cultural implications of these stylistic elements in Gershwin’s work. Content Warning: This post contains a quotation of an offensive racial slur. As discussed in the initial post of this series, George Gershwin’s Blue Monday was cut from the George White Scandals of 1922 after opening night. Still, this short […]

While it was never particularly successful, George Gershwin’s 1922 one-act “jazz-opera” Blue Monday played an important role in bridging the gap between his popular style and classical compositions. This post—the second in a three-part series devoted to Blue Monday—chronicles various efforts to revive and record the piece since its brief stint on Broadway, and examines the ways these productions dealt with the racially and culturally offensive aspects of the show. Content Warning: This post contains a quotation of an offensive racial slur. George Gershwin composed his one-act “jazz-opera” Blue Monday for the George White Scandals of 1922, but it was […]

While it was never particularly successful, George Gershwin’s 1922 one-act “jazz-opera” Blue Monday played an important role in bridging the gap between his popular style and classical compositions. This post—the first of a three-part series devoted to Blue Monday—delves into the creation and short life of the work and explores its place in Gershwin’s compositional development. At the peak of his career, George Gershwin was a versatile and successful composer of movie scores, popular songs, musicals, and concert pieces. But the fifteen-year-old boy who dropped out of school to be a song-plugger didn’t become an opera composer overnight. While the […]

  The Gershwin Initiative’s own Lisa Keeney (lead editorial assistant and saxophonist) sat down in August 2016 to talk with Grammy award-winning saxophonist Timothy McAllister as a promotion for our September 2016 concert with the University of Michigan’s University Symphony Orchestra (USO). The USO premiered both the new edition of Concerto in F and the Unabridged Edition of An American in Paris. This program also featured Adams’ The Chairman Dances, and his Saxophone Concerto with soloist Timothy McAllister, for whom the concerto was written. We are delighted today to bring you the extended cut of the interview.  It is broken into three parts […]

  George Gershwin is well-known for his mixed use of popular and traditional idioms. But what was his personal attitude towards contemporary composers, and how did this influence his approach towards composition? Take a look at how An American in Paris, situated at a critical point in George’s career, reflects both his developing tastes and shifting musical ambitions. By Cassidy Goldblatt George Gershwin began his career in the streets of Tin Pan Alley and Broadway, writing songs inspired by his love of jazz. Yet popular genres could only capture his attention for so long, and he soon felt the itch […]

By Sarah Sisk The startling news was emblazoned on the front page of the New York Times on Monday, July 12, 1937. George Gershwin had died that Sunday despite an emergency operation to remove a brain tumor and save the 38-year-old composer’s life. The news came as a complete shock: while he had suffered from what was deemed a “nervous breakdown” in the weeks preceding, the real source of his ailment was discovered in his final hours, and far too late. In the days and weeks to follow, obituaries cropped up in newspapers across the country, as reporters and columnists […]

The Grofé orchestration of George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue calls for a wide range of saxophones, including one of the smallest members of the family–the sopranino. U-M DMA saxophonist Edward Goodman played the sopranino in our 2014 test performance and came by our office to talk about it. Edward Goodman. While the day-by-day in the Gershwin office has us predominantly editing musical notes on a page, live performances—like the one that just took place with the Reno Philharmonic—are a vital part of the critical edition process. Test performances are in many ways our dress rehearsal, pulling all the parts together […]

On February 21 and 23, the Reno Philharmonic gave a test performance of our current drafts for Rhapsody in Blue and An American in Paris. The response from the orchestra and the audience was fantastic, the performance a success, and our editor-in-chief Mark Clague was able to explore his suspicions about the taxi horn pitches in An American in Paris (see the New York Times article). Here, conductor Laura Jackson provides her own response to the edited scores and considers how the newly reintroduced material fared in performance. Q: Now that the concert is over–and was a huge success–what material did you find you […]

Reno, NV—As editor-in-chief of the Gershwin Critical Edition, I’ve been in Reno this week with fellow editorial board member Ryan Bañagale (Colorado College), working with advisory board member Laura Jackson and her orchestra (the Reno Philharmonic) to test drive our new draft editions of An American in Paris (1928/29) and Rhapsody in Blue (1924, original Whiteman jazz arrangement). We’ve also joined forces with the Donald Sinta Quartet, who are featured as soloists in William Bolcom’s Concerto Grosso for Saxophone Quartet and Orchestra, but who also join the Philharmonic to perform the additional saxophone parts required by the new Gershwin editions. […]

This coming Sunday and Tuesday (Feb. 21 & 23), the Reno Philharmonic will be performing the Gershwin Initiative’s new, critically-edited versions of George Gershwin’s An American in Paris and Rhapsody in Blue. We sat down with Laura Jackson, music director and conductor of the Reno Phil, to talk about her experiences with Gershwin, our new editions, and her upcoming concerts. Q: Hello, Laura, and thank you for spending a little time with us.  To get right to it: What are some of the things that excite you the most about your upcoming performances of Rhapsody in Blue and An American […]