For Immediate Release — Tuesday, October 18, 2005
Contact:
Mary E. McCrank
Media Relations Officer
(585) 245-5516
Musical Tribute to Great American Composer Harold
Arlen Nov. 8 at SUNY Geneseo
GENESEO, N.Y. — Eastman School of Music piano
professor Tony Caramia and retired Eastman voice professor Thomas Paul will pay
tribute to American composer and Buffalo native Harold Arlen at 8 p.m.,
Tuesday, Nov. 8, in Wadsworth Auditorium at the State University of New York at
Geneseo. The concert is free and open to the public.
The multi-media event, "Celebrating the 100th
Birthday of Harold Arlen (1905-1986)," is one of numerous events taking place
this year throughout the world as part of the Harold Arlen 2005 Centennial. In
fact, Caramia performed the tribute this summer at the 2005 Australian Piano
Pedagogy Conference.
Earlier this year, in February, when Caramia and Paul
performed this tribute concert at Kilbourn Hall, about 250 people were turned
away at the door, said Paul. The Geneseo concert is a chance for those folks
and scores more to catch the show.
"It is a chance not to miss it," said Paul, adding the
centennial is the perfect opportunity to educate audiences about Arlen. "We've
got to keep it (Arlen's legacy) alive as long as they'll have us."
One of the most significant songwriters of the modern era,
Arlen composed more than 400 songs, including the
songs for the film "The Wizard of Oz," (including "Over The Rainbow"),
"Stormy Weather," "Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate The Positive" and "Come Rain Or Come
Shine." He collaborated with major lyricists, including Ira Gershwin, Johnny
Mercer, E.Y. "Yip" Harburg, Ted Koehler and Dorothy Fields. His songs have
been recorded by every great artist of the 20th century and have
become among the best-known songs in the world. However, many folks still don't
recognize Arlen's name as the composer of these songs.
"He's the greatest unknown songwriter in the world, but
we're working on it," said Paul, who recalled the year 1944, when he was a
10-year-old boy growing up in southern California and would sing Arlen's tune
"That Old Black Magic" while riding his bicycle.
The Geneseo performance will take a look at Arlen's life in
pictures and film clips, including Arlen himself singing and playing the piano.
In addition, the audience will hear such songs as "Blues in the Night," "Let's
Fall in Love," "Get Happy," "Last Night When We Were Young" and "My Shining
Hour," as well as some of his most famous melodies, such as "Stormy Weather"
and "Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea." The Power Point show will
involve 160-plus slides of Arlen, his life, the people with whom he associated
and many covers of sheet music. It also will feature video clips of legendary
singers, including Barbra Streisand, Frank Sinatra and Mel Torme. One clip
features Sinatra singing "One For My Baby." A 30-slide tribute to the "Wizard
of Oz" will show photographs of Arlen, while Caramia performs "Over the
Rainbow."
Caramia began his journey of
discovering Arlen while preparing his 2004 recording, "Upstate Standards." The
CD featured the music of three Upstate New York musicians, including Arlen.
When he discovered that 2005 would have been Arlen's 100th birthday,
he decided to devote his concerts in 2005 to Arlen's music as a celebration of
the composer's life. In addition, he became acquainted with Arlen's
granddaughter, Sharon Marotta, who had moved to Rochester. Marotta helped
Caramia secure the rare photographs and film clips, as well as a wealth of
family perspectives to help with this musical journey.
Arlen was born Hyman Arluck on Feb. 15, 1905, in
Buffalo. When he was 9, he started piano lessons and rapidly advanced in
his studies of classical music. As a teenager, he developed a deep passion
for jazz and took jobs playing the piano in local bands, movie houses,
vaudeville troupes and cabarets. He left school when he was 16 to pursue a
career in music. He played for several years with various bands and went on a
multi-city tour before moving to New York City at the age of 20.
In 1929, he was introduced to Koehler. The two joined
forces as a songwriting team and turned one of Arlen's song ideas into the
much-loved tune "Get Happy." The song's incredible success landed them a job
writing music for the renowned Cotton Club in Harlem. They wrote five
shows for the Cotton Club from 1930-34, turning out some of the era's biggest
hits, including "Stormy Weather," "I've Got the World On A String," "I Love A
Parade" and "Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea."
During his years with the Cotton Club, Arlen continued to
perform in various shows, record his own compositions and write songs for
Broadway. It was on the set of one of the revues that he met the young
model Anya Taranda and fell madly in love. After several years, the couple
married and moved to Hollywood, where Arlen worked from 1934 through 1963
composing scores for feature films, including the "Wizard of Oz." Eight of his
songs from films have been nominated for Academy Awards. In 2000, "Over the
Rainbow," which won the Academy Award for Best Song in a Motion Picture in
1939, was recognized as the Number One Song of the 20th Century out
of a list of 365 songs compiled by the Recording Industry Association of
America and the National Endowment for the Arts.
Between 1934 to 1973, Arlen also wrote scores for several
Broadway musicals, including "Bloomer Girl," "St. Louis Woman" and "House of
Flowers." In total, Harold Arlen composed more than 20 musical revues and
theater works and 30 scores for Hollywood films during his career. He
collaborated with more than 20 lyricists, in addition to writing his own lyrics
on numerous songs. He composed several solo piano pieces and created more
than 500 songs during his lifetime.
Arlen was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in
1971. Along with other great American songwriters, such as George Gershwin,
Cole Porter and Richard Rodgers, Arlen has laid the foundation of musical
history in the 20th century with his standards. He died in his
New York City apartment on April 23, 1986.
For more information about the concert at SUNY Geneseo,
please call (585) 245-5829. To learn
more about Arlen and the
centennial celebration, visit the Official Harold Arlen Website: www.haroldarlen.com.
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