George and Ira Gershwin were enjoying increasing success in the early 1920s, but they had yet to write a hit show together. Lady Be Good is the story of how a single show changed the future of their careers and the future of Broadway’s musical theater. By Sarah Sisk 1924 was a good year for the Gershwin brothers. That February had seen the premiere and subsequent popular success of George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue. It was also the year that Ira Gershwin, who had been working with George and other composers to write song lyrics for musical theater, decided to […]

  In this post, we introduce guest writer Richie Gerber.  Richie has written previously about Gershwin in his book JAZZ: America’s Gift ~ From Its Birth to George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue & Beyond and here shares with us some thoughts on Gershwin’s paintings. “I noticed especially how he tried to supply to his painting the same warmth, enthusiasm and power that characterized his music.” – Henry Botkin (Armitage, 1938) Whenever George Gershwin’s name is mentioned, without exception everyone thinks—musical genius. Few are aware that he was an exceptional painter as well. Indeed, he was one of a rare few that excelled […]

Kristen Clough talks about our Public Musicology and Education Outreach program and the role our undergraduate researchers play in this project.   Good morning readers! Today I wanted to take a moment to let you in on some of the things going on behind the scenes at the Gershwin Initiative. In addition to our primary goal–creating our critical editions–we have a mission to foster Gershwin scholarship and music scholarship at our university, in our community, and in our K-12 schools.  We call this our Public Musicology and Education Outreach program, through which we seek to blend our musicological research with […]

The South Carolina Historical Society holds letters of correspondence between George Gershwin and DuBose Heyward that detail their the process of creating Porgy and Bess.  In this letter, George Gershwin writes to DuBose Heyward in March of 1932 to discuss a possible folk opera collaboration. Frances Sobolak is an undergraduate student at the University of Michigan pursuing a Linguistics major and Music minor. She joined the Gershwin Initiative team in the fall of her sophomore year through the university’s undergraduate research opportunity program.   In 1926, George Gershwin was busy with musical rehearsals for the upcoming premiere of Oh, Kay!—so busy, in fact, that […]

The South Carolina Historical Society holds letters of correspondence between George Gershwin and DuBose Heyward that detail their the process of creating Porgy and Bess. Take a look at the first of our series of posts on this group of sources.  Frances Sobolak is an undergraduate student at the University of Michigan pursuing a Linguistics major and Music minor. She joined The Gershwin Initiative team in the fall of her sophomore year through the university’s undergraduate research opportunity program. George Gershwin and the author of the novel Porgy, DuBose Heyward, kept in regular touch via mail about their developing project. Their […]

We’ve reached an exciting point in our work towards the critical editions of Rhapsody in Blue and An American in Paris here at the Gershwin Initiative. On February 21st, the Reno Philharmonic and the Donald Sinta Quartet will be performing our current drafts of each work’s critical edition.  This test performance is key to the process of the critical edition, putting the music in the hands of live musicians who help to check and shape our work.  Also on the program are Bolcom’s Concerto Grosso for Saxophone Quartet and Orchestra, and Bernstein’s Symphonic Dances from West Side Story. All of […]

The late David Bowie, a prolific and inventive singer and songwriter, grew famous for his progressive rock style. But in 1998, he did a lovely and little-known take on the old Gershwin standard, “A Foggy Day.” ~Sarah Sisk is an undergraduate English major at U-M’s College of Literature, Science and the Arts. She is working with the Gershwin Initiative as an undergraduate research assistant in the university’s UROP program. The music world has recently felt the loss of English musician and pop icon David Bowie, who died on January 10, 2016. Bowie, whose 1969 single “Space Oddity” helped establish his […]

Leslie Caron, female lead for An American in Paris (1951), is to be featured on CBS Sunday Morning this coming Sunday. This January 17, CBS Sunday Morning will be airing a piece on actress Leslie Caron, who starred alongside Gene Kelly as Lise in the 1951 movie An American in Paris. Caron recently came from London to see the current Broadway production of an American in Paris, and took part in the curtain call. The 84-year-old Franco-American actress and dancer was a ballerina in her early career. Her breakout film role was An American in Paris, and she later starred in other successful film musicals, including Daddy Long Legs (1955) and Gigi (1958). Since […]

December 6th at 2:00PM in the Britten Recital Hall, Earl V. Moore Building Cole Anderson presents arrangements of several of George and Ira Gershwin’s songs, George’s Preludes for Piano, and joined by pianists Siyuan Li and Nick Susi the Concerto in F.  Anderson will perform on George Gershwin’s Steinway Model A piano which has been recently restored at UofM.  Posted on our blog is our interview with Anderson about his upcoming recital and his thoughts on playing the Gershwin piano. Cole Anderson will present several Gershwin pieces on December 6th at 2:00PM in the Britten Recital Hall of the Earl […]

The Library of Congress awarded country music singer and songwriter Willie Nelson with the eighth annual Gershwin Prize, which he received at a memorable music-filled award ceremony on Nov. 15.   Singer and songwriter Willie Nelson was honored with this year’s Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song. The tribute concert took place on Nov. 15 at the DAR (Daughters of the American Revolution) Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C. The Gershwin Prize tradition began in 2007, when the Library of Congress selected its first recipient, Paul Simon. Since then, a total of eight outstanding songwriters have been recognized by […]