The Invention of an American Sound: Gershwin, Copland and Bernstein

In-Person: Adult | This program is completed

20 Academy Street Arlington, MA 02476 United States

Shaira Ali Gallery

All Levels

3/18/2019-4/8/2019

10:00 AM-12:00 PM on Mon

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60.00 USD

Member Discount Available

4 Mondays, 10:00 am - 12:00 pm

Composers George Gershwin, Aaron Copland, and Leonard Bernstein were instrumental in creating a distinctly American sound and style. Their task and challenge: to write music that was accessible to American audiences in sound that incorporated African-American jazz and blues as well as classical works and popular song. Music critic Alex Ross has described this new, uniquely American sound as “black-white classical-popular fusion”. We'll examine this kind of fusion in Gershwin's work Rhapsody in Blue and Bernstein's jazz settings of songs from Wonderful Town.

Gershwin's Porgy and Bess paved the way for a new kind of opera American folk opera. Bernstein brought us 'musical-opera' in the form of West Side Story, first on stage, later on the big screen. Copland offered up his own musical sound in works that expressed the vast American landscape, captured in ballet music like Appalachian Spring and Rodeo and in the wonderfully democratizing orchestral work Fanfare for the Common Man, which we'll hear in two different settings.

No musical training or knowledge is required to enjoy our four weeks together as we listen to the works of these three artists and investigate elements in each of their lives—aesthetic, political, and personal—that make it uniquely American.

  • No supplies are needed but you may want writing materials to take notes.
Burstein, Dotty

she/her/hers Dotty Burstein has had a lifelong interest in the intersection of composers' lives and their music. As such she has developed classes for exploring the music of composers from the Classical and Romantic eras, first at the Tufts Lifelong Learning Institute and most recently at Arlington Center for the Arts. During her musical training, Dotty was inducted into the honorary music fraternity Sigma Alpha Iota, studied with the composer Edwin Gerschefski and the pianist Edward Kilenyi, and played piano in a trio that included her cellist friend and her violinist sister. Today, Dotty continues to enjoy attending concerts and recitals and encouraging others to find joy and inspiration in music.