George Gershwin is a man for all seasons. But perhaps because his name is on that ravishing lullaby, “Summertime,” and the sultry air of Charleston, S.C., continues to permeate his “Porgy and Bess,” his music seems particularly connected to the overheated days and nights of July and August.

And so it was at Saturday evening’s Ravinia Festival gala, “By George! Gershwin,” as the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (superbly conducted by David Alan Miller, a late “replacement” for the ailing James Conlon), joined forces with pianist Kevin Cole (in magnificent form both as accompanist and soloist), and with Broadway stars Brian Stokes Mitchell and Kelli O’Hara, and Grammy-winning vocalist Sylvia McNair for a concert that was “wonderful, marvelous,” and a grand reminder of just what a dazzling composer Gershwin just happened to be.

You could hear it from the start, as the CSO played his 1932 “Cuban Overture,” full of sensual, dance-based Latin rhythms, with a gorgeous clarinet line (cheers for John Bruce Yeh), and a percussion table that got a full workout (with the large video screens in the pavilion providing ideal close-ups of the bells, bongos, claves, guiro, maracas and xylophone). Gershwin got the Latin beat before Aaron Copland or Leonard Bernstein.

From there it was on to selections from “Porgy and Bess.” Mitchell’s movie-star charisma, rubbery dance moves and wonderfully playful jazz stylings proved irresistible in “A Woman is a Sometime Thing.” He was then joined by McNair for the soaring operatic duet, “Bess, You Is My Woman Now.”

The CSO returned for a giddily exuberant, razor-sharp rendering of “An American in Paris,” that ode to all things urban and urbane that instantly evokes both the chaos of streets filled with honking horns and the seductive stroll of boulevardiers. The orchestra seemed buoyed by the sheer joyfulness and exuberance of it all, with the brass section in particularly fine fettle. Read More

SOURCE: Larry Fuchsberg, Star Tribune

Despite its commercial tone, “The Gershwins: Here to Stay” is a fine tribute to the prolific songwriters.

Shown in this UPI file photo (undated, probably 1930s) are George Gershwin (left), and Ira Gershwin (at right), songwriters extraordinaire.

Jacob and Israel Gershvin, better known as George and Ira Gershwin, wrote more than 700 songs, many of them gems of their genre, from 1918 to 1937, when George was felled by a brain tumor at age 38. Some of the best—think of them as minute one-act plays with a twist at the end—are mired in musicals that feel hopelessly dated. How to rescue them?

“The Gershwins: Here to Stay,” which played Friday to a full and enthusiastic house at Orchestra Hall in downtown Minneapolis, is one plausible answer, its commercial tone and oddly punctuated title notwithstanding.

Destined to travel widely, this new multimedia revue assembles hits—no buried treasures here—that span George’s career, from “Rialto Ripples” (1916) to “Our Love Is Here to Stay” (1937), and embeds them in a biographical narrative spiced with marvelous photos and film clips (and occasionally marred by a surfeit of performer chatter).

Conceived by the multitasking pianist-singer Kevin Cole and co-produced by Todd Gershwin, great-nephew of George and Ira, “Here to Stay” has the imprimatur of the Gershwin estate. Inevitably, perhaps, its version of George’s story—Ira’s long career as a lyricist after his brother’s death falls outside the show’s self-imposed boundaries—is slightly sanitized.

The show downplays the significance of George’s Jewishness and of his leftist politics. (It’s framed by the 1927 “Strike Up the Band” but gives no hint that this is the title number of a pointed anti-war satire.) And it breathes not a word of his modernist musical strivings: Arnold Schoenberg was a friend, Alban Berg an inspiration.

Cole, though sounding a bit scripted at times, proved an engaging host. On Friday his traversal of “Rhapsody in Blue,” a piece he’s played often, seemed cautious and a little square, lacking the rhythmic fizz and snap of Gershwin’s own pianism. The audience, treated to Gershwin’s account of “I Got Rhythm” via video, could easily make the comparison. Other evenings may tell a different tale.

Soprano Sylvia McNair is one of the best in the business—if you’re skeptical, track down her CD of Samuel Barber’s “Knoxville Summer of 1915″—and her sultry “Summertime,” atmospherically accompanied by a patient Minnesota Orchestra under ex-assistant conductor William Eddins, was for me the summit of the program.

Singer-tap dancer-choreographer Ryan VanDenBoom, a mere 21, isn’t quite Kelly or Astaire—who is?—but has a bright future.