DuBose’s mother, Jane Heyward, ventured up to New York City after the premiere of Porgy and Bess, and George Gershwin sent a warm hello her way. By Frances Sobolak Porgy and Bess had its official premiere on September 30th in Boston and its Broadway premiere at the Alvin Theatre in New York City on October 10th. In October 1935, Jane Heyward, DuBose Heyward’s mother, left her abode in Charleston, South Carolina and traveled up to New York City with the intent of, presumably, seeing the newly premiered opera. During Jane’s visit, George Gershwin sent a brief letter to her hotel […]

Before Porgy and Bess premiered in September 1935, it seems that George had made a bet in 1922 that he would produce an opera in ten years. According to The Washington Post, he lost this bet by three years! By Rachel Fernandes Two months before Porgy and Bess’s September 1935 premiere, an article in The Washington Post suggested that George Gershwin had lost a long-standing bet: that he would “have an opera produced in ten years.” Gershwin conveniently couldn’t remember with whom he’d made the 1922 wager, and the article—penned 13 years later—cheekily observed that while he had lost this […]

By Sarah Sisk In 1934, George Gershwin hosted his own radio show, called Music by Gershwin. Although little-known today, this program happens to be crucial to the existence of one of Gershwin’s greatest works, Porgy and Bess. “George Gershwin belonged to the radio age. His genius freshened the life-blood of radio—Music. His growth and triumphs paralleled the magic advances of broadcasting which in a flash introduced his popular melodies to the entire nation.” New York Times, July 18, 1937. So begins a July 18, 1937, New York Times article, written in homage a mere week after the beloved composer’s unexpected […]

PBS will air the tribute concert for the legendary Motown and R&B singer and songwriter on February 10, 2017. By: Sarah Sisk On November 16, the award ceremony and tribute concert for the eighth annual Gershwin Prize for Popular Song was held at DAR Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C. The Gershwin Initiative’s editor-in-chief Dr. Mark Clague and managing editor, Dr. Jessica Getman, traveled to D.C. to attend the annual concert that celebrates each year’s Gershwin Prize recipient. (Perhaps you have seen some of their photos from the evening on our Facebook page, American Music Institute / Gershwin Initiative.) Smokey Robinson […]

Ever wonder what Hanukkah in the Gershwins’ world was like? Turns out it was only just coming into its own as the celebratory holiday we know today. Let’s take a peek at this well-loved festival’s face in the 1920s… By Cassidy Goldblatt Prior to the ‘20s, Hanukkah as celebrated by America’s Jewish population was a rather humble holiday, centered around lighting the menorah candles in commemoration of the 2nd-century BC Maccabean Revolt and the Temple’s subsequent purification. But the 1920s saw the rise of new opinions about tradition and religious devotion. Victor Emanuel Reichert quoted a rabbi in 1927 speaking […]

By Sarah Sisk Ira Gershwin, Pulitzer-prize-winning lyricist and supplier of words to some of the most iconic songs in American musical history, may often be referred to as “the other Gershwin”, overshadowed by the popularity of his younger brother George. But while Ira may not always get the attention he deserves, the disparity in the Gershwin brothers’ respective notorieties has led to a sixty-year-running Gershwin joke—and of course poor Ira is the butt of it. The story goes that in the 1950s, a radio disk jockey, when playing a piece written by the Gershwin brothers, attributed the song to “George […]

Just a quick note from me (Kristen) today to share with you some of the reasons my colleagues and I love working here at the Gershwin Initiative and to tell you about the University of Michigan’s Giving Blue Day campaign. Giving Blue Day is the U-M version of Giving Tuesday—Go Blue! Our ability to make rapid progress on our editions (this year we’ve completed drafts of An American in Paris, Concerto in F, the Whiteman-band Rhapsody in Blue, and Porgy and Bess has finally been fully engraved into the music software) depends on donations to support our army of assistants, research travel, and much more.  You can donate […]

In today’s post, Frances traces some of the various transformations (or potential misprints) of the Gershwin family name. George and Ira’s father arrived in New York in 1890 still accompanied by his Russian Jewish name: Moishe Gershovitz. Moishe soon changed his name to the much more Americanized Morris Greshevin, as was frequently the custom with immigrants’ names upon arriving in America. Morris’s wife, Roza Bruskin, similarly became known as simply Rose. By the time of their union in 1895, their marriage license read “Gershvin.” In the 1900 US census, two years after George’s birth, Morris was back to using the […]

As word spread about a new Porgy production with George Gershwin, popular American entertainer Al Jolson inquired about the pending “musical.”  Four letters between DuBose Heyward and George Gershwin detail the matter.  Letters used with kind permission of the South Carolina Historical Society. By Frances Sobolak After George Gershwin and DuBose Heyward secured the operatic rights for Porgy in May of 1932, one of their next labors was to determine who would star in an operatic production. Though the theater production written by DuBose and his wife Dorothy featured an all-black cast, the same wasn’t an initial guarantee for an operatic […]

“ Love is Here to Stay” has been a celebrated jazz standard for more than six decades, and it is most often treated as a straightforward love ballad. However, the lack of gendered language in its lyrics opens up the possibility for alternative interpretations, as well as creative and political performances. By Megan Hill, Ph.D. The presence of gendered language (he/she/him/her, man/woman, etc.) in song lyrics provides the opportunity for people concerned with gender and sexuality politics to perform the song in order to make political statements, regardless of whether or not the song’s composer and/or lyricist had such politics […]