Traditional pop is Western pop music that generally pre-dates the advent of rock and roll in the mid-1950s. The most popular and enduring songs from this era of music are known as pop standards or American standards. The works of these songwriters and composers are usually considered part of the canon known as the "Great American Songbook". More generally, the term "standard" can be applied to any popular song that has become very widely known within mainstream culture.
Rhapsody in Blue is a 1924 musical composition for solo piano and jazz band, which combines elements of classical music with jazz-influenced effects. Commissioned by bandleader Paul Whiteman and written by George Gershwin, the work premiered in a concert titled "An Experiment in Modern Music" on February 12, 1924, in Aeolian Hall, New York City. Whiteman's band performed the rhapsody with Gershwin playing the piano. Whiteman's arranger Ferde Grofé orchestrated the rhapsody several times including the 1924 original scoring, the 1926 pit orchestra scoring, and the 1942 symphonic scoring.
The 3rd Annual Grammy Awards were held on April 12, 1961, at Los Angeles and New York. They recognized musical accomplishments by the performers for the year 1960. Ray Charles won four awards and Bob Newhart and Henry Mancini each won three awards.
Concerto in F is a composition by George Gershwin for solo piano and orchestra which is closer in form to a traditional concerto than his earlier jazz-influenced Rhapsody in Blue. It was written in 1925 on a commission from the conductor and director Walter Damrosch. A full performance lasts around half an hour.
The Great American Songbook is the loosely defined canon of significant 20th-century American jazz standards, popular songs, and show tunes.
Marin Alsop is an American conductor, the first woman to win the Koussevitzky Prize for conducting and the first conductor to be awarded a MacArthur Fellowship. She is music director laureate of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and chief conductor of the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Ravinia Festival, and the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra. She was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2008 and to the American Philosophical Society in 2020.
Michael Jay Feinstein is an American singer, pianist, and music revivalist. He is an archivist and interpreter for the repertoire known as the Great American Songbook. In 1988, he won a Drama Desk Special Award for celebrating American musical theatre songs. Feinstein is also a multi-platinum-selling, five-time Grammy-nominated recording artist. He is the artistic director for The Center for the Performing Arts in Carmel, Indiana.
The John G. Shedd Institute for the Arts, is a performing arts company, cultural arts center, and community music school in Eugene, Oregon, United States. The institute has three performance venues, various community meeting rooms, and extensive music education facilities. It presents annually an array of culturally diverse festivals, concert series and educational programs that focus on, but are not limited to, American music.
Richard Hyman is an American jazz pianist and composer. Over a 70-year career, he has worked as a pianist, organist, arranger, music director, electronic musician, and composer. He was named a National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Masters fellow in 2017.
The New York Youth Symphony (NYYS), founded in 1963, is a music organization for the youth in New York City, widely reputed to be one of the best of its kind in the nation and world. Its programs include its flagship Orchestra, Chamber Music, Jazz, Apprentice Conducting, Composition, and Musical Theater Songwriting Programs. Its members range from 12 to 22 years of age. NYYS members are said to include the most talented young musicians in the New York metropolitan area. In 2023, the New York Youth Symphony won the Grammy Award for Best Orchestral Performance at the 65th Annual Grammy Awards.
James Tocco is an American concert pianist. He is the youngest of thirteen children born to Vincenzo and Rose Tocco, both Sicilian immigrants.
James Paul is an American conductor. He is currently the music director of the Oregon Coast Music Festival.
Vince Giordano is an American saxophonist and leader of the New York-based Nighthawks Orchestra. He specializes in jazz of the 1920s and 1930s and his primary instrument is the bass saxophone. Vince Giordano and the Nighthawks have played on television and film soundtracks, including the HBO series Boardwalk Empire and Woody Allen's musical comedy film Everyone Says I Love You.
Chuck Redd is an American jazz drummer and vibraphonist.
Orchestral jazz or symphonic jazz is a form of jazz that developed in New York City in the 1920s. Early innovators of the genre, such as Fletcher Henderson and Duke Ellington, include some of the most highly regarded musicians, composers, and arrangers in all of jazz history. The fusion of jazz's rhythmic and instrumental characteristics with the scale and structure of an orchestra, made orchestral jazz distinct from the musical genres that preceded its emergence. Its development contributed both to the popularization of jazz, as well as the critical legitimization of jazz as an art form.
The Ojai Music Festival is an annual classical music festival in the United States. Held in Ojai, California, for four days every June, the festival presents music, symposia, and educational programs emphasizing adventurous, eclectic, and challenging music, principally by contemporary composers. A secondary focus of the Festival is the discovery or rediscovery of rare or little known works by past masters.
David Balakrishnan is the founder of the Turtle Island Quartet.
Third stream is a music genre that is a fusion of jazz and classical music. The term was coined in 1957 by composer Gunther Schuller in a lecture at Brandeis University. There are many ways to define third-stream music. It could refer to a group of jazz musicians playing solely, or a jazz soloist performing with a symphony orchestra, as long as the musicians are able to interpret and play jazz music. Improvisation is generally seen as a vital component of third stream. In third-stream music, composers incorporated elements of classical music, such as the use of jazz instruments and classical music forms, into their jazz compositions. The fusion of jazz and classical music is also viewed as "born out of a reciprocal interest: the interest of the classical community in the developments in jazz music and the interest of the jazz community in the advances of classical music." The innovative idea of fusing jazz and classical music pushed the boundaries of traditional classical music and introduced a new genre that blends the two styles into a unique hybrid form.
Black conductors are musicians of African, Caribbean, African-American ancestry and other members of the African diaspora who are musical ensemble leaders who direct classical music performances, such as an orchestral or choral concerts, or jazz ensemble big band concerts by way of visible gestures with the hands, arms, face and head. Conductors of African descent are rare, as the vast majority are male and Caucasian.
The Chicago Philharmonic is an American orchestra based in Chicago, Illinois, governed by the Chicago Philharmonic Society. Founded in 1988 by principals of the Lyric Opera Orchestra of Chicago, it is a musician-governed, non-profit organization consisting of nearly 200 classical music performers from the Chicago area. Since 2013, the Artistic Director and Principal Conductor has been Scott Speck.