BOSTON, MA. (Berklee University newsletter) - Song, Delta Air Lines' low-fare subsidiary, and Berklee College of
Music are pleased to present "Song's Nothing Conservatory About It," an exciting, eight-concert series, featuring a wide variety of music styles. The fourth concert of the series, Thursday, January 27, 2005, is the Great American Songbook: The
Music of Cole Porter.
The concert begins at 8:15 pm at the Berklee Performance Center, 136 Massachusetts Ave., Boston, MA. Berklee welcomes WGBH-FM 89.7 as the series media sponsor. The evening will be hosted by Ron Gill of WGBH's Jazz Gallery. A pair of roundtrip Song airline tickets will also be given away to one concertgoer.
General admission tickets are $20 ($15 for seniors). Season tickets to the series, $50 for the remaining concerts in the series, may be purchased at the Berklee Performance Center box office. There is a 10% discount on all tickets for WGBH members. For more information please call 617-747-2261. Proceeds from the concert will benefit Mercy Corps tsunami relief efforts in Southeast Asia, www.mercycorps.com.
Berklee's Great American Songbook concerts are presented annually to pay tribute to songwriters who contributed to the compendium of mid-20th century popular song. This year, the college honors Cole Porter, who is widely recognized as one of America's greatest composers. Porter began studying violin and piano at a very early age, and then attended Yale, where he wrote the enduring fight songs "Bingo Eh Yale," and "Bulldog." He began to achieve success on the Broadway stage by the end of the 1920's, and his style soon became recognizable as sophisticated, literate, and charming.
The Great American Songbook concert will feature faculty vocalists Donna McElroy and Maggie Scott, student vocalist Jeremy Ragsdale, and featured arranger and instrumentalist Larry Monroe, performing with the Berklee Great American Songbook Orchestra, a 40-piece all-star band of faculty members and top students. Musical
Director for the concert is Richard Evans, known for his work producing and arranging for
Natalie Cole, Woody Herman, Ahmad Jamaal, and
Buddy Rich, among others.
Faculty arrangements in the lush, swinging styles of the pop song's golden age will showcase a variety of Cole Porter tunes spanning the length of his career, including "Begin The Beguine," "Night And Day," and "What's This Thing Called Love." McElroy is known for her vocal work on albums by wide ranging artists, including Al Green, Tom Jones, Amy Grant,
Billy Joel and Patty Loveless.
Cole Porter had a string of hit shows in the 1930's and 1940's, including The New Yorkers, Gay Divorce, Anything Goes, Red Hot And Blue, and Something For The Boys. During this period he also scored several Hollywood musicals, such as Born To Dance and Rosalie. "Anything Goes," "You're the Top," and "Count Your Blessings," are only a few among Porter's impressive and expansive song list.
Porter scored his greatest triumph in 1948 with Kiss Me, Kate, which ran for over 1000 performances and is still widely performed today. He had several more hit shows in the 1950's, including Can-Can, Silk Stockings, and High Society, before passing away in 1964. His legacy lives on through numerous anthologies and songbooks.
