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More Stories from the American Songbook

Sales for this series have closed.
Registrations may still be available for the individual sessions within this series.

More Stories from the American Songbook

3-Session Afternoon Series on Zoom

3 sessions, from April 19 to May 17, 2023
Code: 1K0357
Select your Registration
$45
Member
$55
Nonmember

The 3 programs included in this series are:

Here are more of those wonderful songs we love, and the stories behind their long lives. In an afternoon series, filmmaker and cultural historian Sara Lukinson combines lively lectures with a wide variety of film clips as she traces how favorite songs by each composer came to be and how different artists, unexpected arrangements, and changing times transformed them into something new but still the same. This session spotlights songs by Irving Berlin.

Here are more of those wonderful songs we love, and the stories behind their long lives. In an afternoon series, filmmaker and cultural historian Sara Lukinson combines lively lectures with a wide variety of film clips as she traces how favorite songs by each composer came to be and how different artists, unexpected arrangements, and changing times transformed them into something new but still the same. This session spotlights songs by Johnny Mercer.

Here are more of those wonderful songs we love, and the stories behind their long lives. In an afternoon series, filmmaker and cultural historian Sara Lukinson combines lively lectures with a wide variety of film clips as she traces how favorite songs by each composer came to be and how different artists, unexpected arrangements, and changing times transformed them into something new but still the same. This session spotlights songs by Burt Bacharach.

Here are more of those wonderful songs we love, and the stories behind their long and unexpected lives. Each program takes up the work of one songwriter and a few of his familiar, forever songs, where daydreams, blue skies, and love lost and found still live.

Combing a lively lecture with a wide variety of film clips, filmmaker and cultural historian Sara Lukinson traces how these favorite songs from the Great American Songbook came to be and how different artists, unexpected arrangements, and changing times transformed them into something new but still the same.

Please Note: Individual sessions are available for purchase.

April 19  Blue Skies: Songs by Irving Berlin

Berlin’s songs are deceptively simple: His magical fusions of melody and lyrics seem more born than written. His joyful songs are contagious, while his love songs are tender and eternally true, such as Blue Skies, What’ll I Do, Cheek to Cheek, and Putting on the Ritz

May 3  My Huckleberry Friend: Songs by Johnny Mercer

Could one man have written the lyrics to so many favorites, and with more composers than any other lyricist? Each song is so distinctive, whether with zest and shine, or dreaminess and the heart’s devotion. Lukinson makes a start with songs like Moon River, Come Rain or Come Shine, That Old Black Magic, and Something’s Gotta Give.

May 17  The Look of Love: Songs by Burt Bacharach

He’s the composer who keeps surprising us. Bacharach’s popular tunes have a catchy lightness, but it’s their richness that takes hold and stays there. Reimagined over the years, his songs grow in dimension, delight, and emotional power. Revisit The Look of Love, Make it Easy on Yourself, What the World Needs Now, and God Give Me Strength.

Lukinson, who has won three Emmys and seven Writer’s Guild Awards, now teaches at NYU and the 92nd Street Y. Her personal essays have appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, and Intima: A Journal of Narrative Medicine.

3 sessions

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