George Gershwin

1. George Gershwin September 26, 1898 – July 11, 1937

2. Born in Brooklyn in 1898 to Jewish immigrant parents from Odessa, Ukraine (then part of the Russian Empire), Gershwin studied piano under Charles Hambitzer and composition with Rubin Goldmark and Henry Cowell. • He began his career as a song plugger, but soon started composing Broadway theatre works with his brother Ira Gershwin and Buddy DeSylva. • George Gershwin was the second of four children,the others being Ira, Arthur and Frances. • He first displayed interest in music at the age of ten, when he was intrigued by what he heard at his friend MaxieRosenzweig's violin recital. Early Years

3. His parents had bought a piano for lessons for his older brother Ira, but to his parents' surprise and Ira's relief, it was George who played it. • Gershwin tried various piano teachers for two years, before being introduced to Charles Hambitzer by Jack Miller, the pianist in the Beethoven Symphony Orchestra. Until Hambitzer's death in 1918, he acted as Gershwin's mentor. • On leaving school at the age of 15, Gershwin found his first job as a "song plugger" for Jerome H. Remick and Company, a publishing firm on New York City's Tin Pan Alley, where he earned $15 a week. Gershwin

4. His first published song was "When You Want 'Em, You Can't Get 'Em, When You've Got 'Em, You Don't Want 'Em." It was published in 1916 when Gershwin was only 17 years old and earned him $5. • In 1916, Gershwin started working for Aeolian Company and Standard Music Rolls in New York, recording and arranging. He produced dozens, if not hundreds, of rolls under his own and assumed names. • In the early 1920s, Gershwin frequently worked with the lyricist Buddy DeSylva. Together they created the experimental one-act jazz opera Blue Monday, set in Harlem. It is widely regarded as a forerunner to the groundbreaking Porgy and Bess. • n 1924, Gershwin composed his first major classical work, Rhapsody in Blue, for orchestra and piano. It was orchestrated by FerdeGrofé and premiered by Paul Whiteman's concert band in New York. It proved to be his most popular work. Gershwin

5. He was commissioned by RKO Pictures in 1936 to write the music for the film Shall We Dance, starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. Gershwin's extended score, which would marry ballet with jazz in a new way, runs over an hour in length. It took Gershwin several months to write and orchestrate it. • Early in 1937, Gershwin began to complain of blinding headaches and a recurring impression that he was smelling burned rubber. Doctors discovered he had developed a type of cystic malignant brain tumor known as glioblastomamultiforme. Last Years

6. Rhapsody in Blue (for piano and orchestra, 1924) • Dream Sequence (for orchestra, 1929) • An American in Paris (for orchestra, 1928) • Shall We Dance (1937 film) a movie score feature-length ballet • Porgy and Bess (1935) at the Colonial Theatre in Boston • Crazy for You (1992), a revised version of Girl Crazy, written and compiled without the participation of either George or Ira Gershwin. • Shall We Dance (1937) (original orchestral score by Gershwin, no recordings available in modern stereo, some sections have never been recorded) Famous Works