George Gershwin Alone http://www.gershwinalone.com/home/Home02.html is a celebrated work about the legendary American composer. A Canadian-bred actor, singer, pianist and writer, Felder created the show that he calls "play with music." The show, which Felder has performed across the United States and internationally, incorporates the Gershwin's' best-known songs, from The Man I Love and Someone to Watch Over Me, through passages and songs from An American in Paris and Porgy and Bess, to a complete performance of Rhapsody in Blue. The first popular composer to use jazz as the foremost musical element in the serious concert hall, Gershwin absorbed the musical styles, rhythms and sophistication of the American spirit and created a musical language that made its mark on both classical and popular music throughout the world. Felder brings to life the spirit and talent of the legendary composer and pianist, leading audiences through the fascinating rhythms of Gershwin's legendary songbook, while telling the tale of his tragically short life.
George Gershwin was born in 1898 to Russian-Jewish immigrant parents in Brooklyn, New York. Together, he and his brother Ira wrote standards such as The Man I Love, Someone to Watch Over Me, "Embraceable You, Fascinating Rhythm, I Got Rhythm, S'Wonderful and They Can't Take That Away from Me. His groundbreaking opera, Porgy and Bess, is now considered an American classic. All told, George Gershwin wrote more than one thousand songs for the stage and screen as well as works for the opera house and the symphony orchestra, including his renowned Rhapsody in Blue. In 1937, at the age of 38, Gershwin died of an undiagnosed brain tumor, never knowing how famous and beloved he and his work would become.
Tickets for George Gershwin Alone are currently on sale and range in price from $55 to $60. Tickets for the New Year's Eve presentation of The Great American Song Book Sing-A-Long are $100 for the 7 p.m. performance and $150 for the 10 p.m. performance. For show times and dates, visit eightyeightentertainment.com.
Tickets are available at Drury Lane Water Tower Place Box Office; Box Office charge-by-phone at (312) 642-2000; at all Ticketmaster ticket centers; Ticketmaster charge by phone at (312) 559-1212; and online at Ticketmaster.com. Special offers are available for groups of 10 or more. For groups of ten or more, visit GroupTix online at GroupTix.net or call (877) 4-GRP-TIX or (877) 447-7849.
Piano provided by Thomas Zoells of Pianoforte Chicago, Inc.; pianofortechicago.com 10 S. Michigan Ave, #825, Chicago, IL 60605 (312) 291-0000.
HERSHEY FELDER
"GEORGE GERSHWIN ALONE"
December 23-30
"GREAT AMERICAN SONGBOOK SING-A-LONG"
December 31
Drury Lane Water Tower Place
175 E. Chestnut, Chicago
312.642-2000
drurylanewatertower.com
About Hershey Felder
Hershey Felder (born July 9, 1968) is a Canadian pianist, actor, playwright, composer and producer. He is the first artist to have created (as playwright, actor and pianist) the role of American composer George Gershwin for the theatrical stage in the stage play George Gershwin Alone. Combining the craft of acting and concert-level piano performance, George Gershwin Alone was followed by the creation of the role of Fryderyk Chopin, the Polish composer/pianist, and the roles of Ludwig van Beethoven and Gerhard von Breuning in Beethoven, As I Knew Him. These three works comprise a trilogy known as "The Composer Sonata." To date, Felder has appeared before the paying public with his trilogy as well as in theatre roles and concerts for more than 4,000 performances. Felder has acknowledged that he will continue his theatrical one-man format with stories reaching further than just the art of classical music, and will also include his own compositions.
Of Felder's compositions, Noah's Ark, an Opera has been performed with members of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, and members of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra. His Aliyah Concerto on Israeli Themes for piano and orchestra has been performed in Canada and in the United States. The Suite Les Anges de Paris for violin and piano, Etudes Thématiques, as well as Song Settings (the poetry of Vachel Lindsay) have been performed on and recorded by the WFMT Radio Network in Chicago. Felder holds a Negaunee Foundation Chicago commission for a new operatic composition.
Lauded by the majority of the international critical press, December 2009, Hershey Felder's works appear to inspire ardent fans as well as detractors much like the critical assessments of the work of the masters he represents.
Currently, Felder is the President of Eighty-Eight Entertainment,[1] a music-based production company, producing new performance works worldwide. He is married to A. Kim Campbell, the former Prime Minister of Canada. They make their home in Paris, France.
