Research Paper On George Gershwin

Brittany Moak
Mr. Elloit
Music Appreciation Spring Semester 2017
April 13, 2017
George Gershwin
According to www.biography.com, George Gershwin was one of the most admirable American music composers of the twentieth century, he is known for popular stage and screen numbers as well as classical compositions. He was born September 26, 1898, in Brooklyn, New York. George dropped out of school and began playing the piano instrument professsionally only at 15 years old. Within a couple years, he was one of the most sought after musicians in America. He is a composer of jazz, opera, and popular songs for screen and stage, many of his works are now respectable. Gershwin died following his brain surgery on July 11, 1937, at 38 years old.
George Gershwin
After dropping out at 15 years old, George played at several New York nightclubs and began his stint as a “song plugger” in New York’s Tin Pan Alley. After only 3 years of playing out tunes on the piano for his thrilling customers, he had completely transformed into a highly dexterous and skilled composer. To earn some extra cash, he worked as a rehearsal piano player for the Broadway singers. In 1916, George composed his first song, “When You Want ‘Em, You Can’t Get ‘Em; When You Have ‘Em, You Don’t Want
pbs.org, rom 1920 to 1924, Gershwin composed for a yearly production put on by George White. After a show titled “Blue Monday,” the bandleader in the pit, Paul Whiteman, he asked Gershwin to create a jazz number that would heighten the genre’s respectability. Legend has it that George forgot about the request until he read the newspaper article stating the fact that Whiteman’s latest performance would feature a Gershwin composition. Writing at a manic pace in order to meet the stopping point, George composed what might be considered his best-known work, “Rhapsody in Blue.”
During that time, and in years following, Gershwin wrote a number of songs for screen and stage that quickly became standards, including “Oh, Lady Be Good!” “Someone to Watch Over Me”, “Strike Up the Band,” “Embraceable You,” “Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off” and “They Can’t Take That Away From Me.” His lyric writer for almost all of these tunes was his brother, Ira, who wrote lyrics that were witty and inventive wordplay received nearly as much acclaim as George’s compositions. In the 1920s, Gershwin spent a lot of time in Paris, which inspired his jazz-influenced orchestral composition An American