George Gershwin's Rhapsody In Blue

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George Gershwin Born in 1898 to Russian immigrants who moved to New York in the 1890s, George Gershwin was an America pianist and composer. Unlike many other composers, Gershwin did not start hearing music in his household at a very early age. He was not around music until his parents bought their first piano in 1910. Although his parents originally bought the piano for George’s older brother, George ended up quickly exceling at playing piano. He started out taking lessons from teachers around the neighborhood he lived in and then was accepted as a pupil of Charles Hambitzer (Crawford). Music became a larger part of Gershwin’s life when he dropped out of high school. At the age of fifteen years old, Gershwin was hired by a music publishing …show more content…

This program was publicized as “An Experiment in Modern Music” and was organized by Paul Whiteman, a dance orchestra leader (Crawford.) During the time period, jazz music was enjoyed by the urban public, but criticized by music critics and not played by professional concert musicians. Because of this, Whiteman wanted to bring jazz to the world of concert music and used Gershwin’s composition, “Rhapsody in Blue”, to do so at the concert with Whiteman’s orchestra. Whiteman’s promotion of the concert and public practices attracted many critics to attend the concert and made it well-publicized to the general public. From the concert, the “Rhapsody in Blue” earned the approval of the audience and grabbed the attention of many music critics. For the first time, jazz became an accepted genre of music to be played in concert halls and this made an impact in the history of music because jazz music, which was once thought of as just lively dance music for the public and avoided by the concert hall audience and musicians, became revolutionized through syncopated symphony arrangements and played in concert halls. From the concert, “An Experiment in Modern Music”, Gershwin became known for being the composer who brought the genre of jazz music to concert halls

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