Melting Pot

Available for 28 days

Donald Macleod explores the early life of George Gershwin, the composer of the American ‘melting pot’. Gershwin started working as a musician and songwriter in his teenage years and became one of the defining voices of a new America in the swinging 20s and the glory days of Hollywood in the 1930s. This was a period when American writers, artists, advertisers, architects and film-makers were inviting audiences to see, hear and think about the world in ways that they never had before – in ways that made sense of, or at least gave them a way of looking at, the modern world. Gershwin was one of these trailblazing modernists in part because of his effort to make music commensurate with the idea of American as a ‘melting pot’ – and his bridging the outmoded gulf between high and low culture. Rhapsody in Blue Jean Yves Thibaudet, piano Baltimore Symphony Orchestra Marin Alsop, conductor Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off Sarah Vaughan Hal Mooney, piano Swanee Frank Braley, piano Our Love is Here to Stay Nigel Kennedy, violin Lullaby Cleveland Orchestra Riccardo Chailly, conductor Somebody Loves Me Kiri Te Kanawa, soprano Suite from Blue Monday (arr. Jeanneau) Katia Labeque and Marielle Labeque (pianos) Rhapsody in Blue Jean Yves Thibaudet, piano Baltimore Symphony Orchestra Marin Alsop, conductor