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- At age 15, Gershwin dropped out of school and took a job as a pianist and song plugger for Tin Pan Alley, a collection of music publishers and songwriters in New York City.
- Gershwin especially liked parties and dated many glamorous women. He even proposed to one but he never married, he said he was too busy. Here is one of George Gershwin’s most famous quote: “Why should I limit myself to only one woman when I can have as many women as I want?”
- Gershwin began his hobby of painting and he got quite good at it. He became more serious about it as he went along. His last oil portrait was of his good friend, Arnold Schoenberg.
- Schoenberg and Gershwin got along very well, they used to play tennis weekly at Gershwin’s Beverly Hills court. He even asked Schoenberg for composition lessons but Schoenberg refused by saying: “I would only make you a bad Schoenberg, and you’re such a good Gershwin already.”
- Humble origins. George Gershwin was born in New York City into a Russian Jewish immigrant family. As a boy, George frequented the local Yiddish theatres, ran errands for them and appeared onstage as an extra.
- 'The boy is a genius' The acclaimed piano teacher Charles Hambitzer took Gershwin on at the age of 14 and immediately realized the level of talent he had on his hands. ‘
- Tin Pan Alley. Gershwin began his career as a song plugger in New York’s Tin Pan Alley. To earn extra, he also worked as a rehearsal pianist for Broadway singers.
- Early works for the stage. In his 20s, Gershwin started composing Broadway musical theatre works with his brother Ira writing the lyrics. They even created an experimental one-act jazz opera Blue Monday, set in Harlem – a pre-cursor to Porgy and Bess.
Gershwin quickly became a “much-sought-after accompanist,” according to lyricist Irving Caesar, who remembered that people “loved to have George play the new songs for them.” A self-described “piano-buff,” Caesar would visit Remick just to hear Gershwin play: “His rhythms had the impact of a sledge hammer.
- George Gershwin Was Not His Given Name. Indeed, the name George Gershwin is known worldwide — it’s synonymous with great American music. However, it may surprise some to know that this was not his birth name.
- He Had Humble Origins. Gershwin was the second of four children in a working-class family of Russian Jewish immigrants. His parents were Morris and Rose, and his siblings were Ira, Arthur, and the young sister, Frances.
- He Had No Formal Training. George Gershwin is known as one of the greatest composers in American history. That’s why it may come as a surprise to many that he had no formal training in music theory or composition.
- Gershwin Was A Piano Prodigy. As we mentioned above, when George Gershwin was still a child, his parents bought his brother a piano. Yet it was George who took to the instrument like a moth to a flame.
In 2010, Brian Wilson released Brian Wilson Reimagines Gershwin, consisting of ten George and Ira Gershwin songs, bookended by passages from Rhapsody in Blue, with two new songs completed from unfinished Gershwin fragments by Wilson and band member Scott Bennett.
Oct 1, 1998 · Gershwin's request for lessons, usually made at some fancy party where he had dazzled everyone at the piano, may have seemed charming in an unpolished, American way, or annoyingly naive, or...
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Feb 12, 2024 · He would also incorporate, at Ira’s suggestion, a lyrical and romantic theme he’d improvised at a party, to contrast with the lively syncopation that characterises much of the melody. Rhapsody in Blue received its premiere on 12 February, with its composer as soloist, to a packed Aeolian Hall.
