The Center’s new Performing Arts Connect series uses Zoom videoconferencing to bring you live workshops and presentations featuring artists and experts from leading cultural organizations around the world. You can enjoy these virtual field trips from the safety of home – or anywhere!

Story of a Composer: George Gershwin
Live via Zoom from the Manhattan School of Music

The 1920s saw a young nation, now free from war, able to develop its own rich culture. Major cities became centers for innovation in music, shunning European classicism for a freedom that was strictly American. It was from this ideal that the most well-known of American composers, George Gershwin, emerged. In this interactive Zoom program, participants will make guided comparisons between the classical and jazz idioms and apply these differences to the music of Gershwin in historical and social context, learning about many important works such as Porgy and Bess and Rhapsody in Blue.