September 7: Michael Feinstein and the Great American Songbook

[caption id=“attachment_11927” align=“alignleft” width=“300”] Feinstein (l) with Marvin Hamlisch, who died on August 6th[/caption]
Michael Feinstein, who worked closely with Ira Gershwin during the last six years of the great lyricist’s life to catalogue and preserve his and brother George Gershwin’s unpublished sheet music and rare recordings, was born in Columbus, Ohio on this date in 1956. Feinstein has dedicated much of his career to promoting the “Great American Songbook,” through his own recordings, through collaborations with composers, and on the Broadway stage. In 2000, the Library of Congress appointed him to its National Recording Preservation Board, and in 2009, Feinstein created the Center for the Performing Arts in Carmel Indiana, a three-theater venue that also houses the Great American Songbook Initiative (consisting of an archive and reference library, a museum, and an annual competition for high school student composers). Feinstein’s own albums include Pure Gershwin (1987), Remember: Michael Feinstein Sings Irving Berlin (1987), Michael Feinstein Sings the Jerry Herman Songbook (1993), and Michael Feinstein with the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra (2001), among many others. In 2008, Feinstein married his long-time partner, Terrence Flannery in a ceremony at which television judge Judith Sheindlin (“Judge Judy”) presided. In 2010, PBS aired Michael Feinstein’s American Songbook, a three-part documentary.
“I hear the name Gershwin and I think of the most incredibly talented, prolific, extraordinary composer of the century, and his music is as fresh and vital today as it was when he originally created it.” —Michael Feinstein

Watch a 1987 performance by Michael Feinstein of two songs by the Gershwins: “ ‘S Wonderful” and “He Loves and She Loves”: