The MasterVoices Podcast
Part oral history, part entertainment, and part education, the show will invite a diverse range of masterful voices to explore subjects ranging from music and language to history and culture.
The MasterVoices Podcast is a project of the New York City nonprofit MasterVoices (originally The Collegiate Chorale), whose mission is using the human voice to connect, inspire, and unite. Founded in 1941 by Robert Shaw, the Chorale was one of the first integrated choruses in the United States.
Learn more at www.mastervoices.org.
The MasterVoices Podcast
Stories, Songs, and STRIKE!
In the 1920s, operetta remained supreme and American audiences were in love with Gilbert and Sullivan – the Gershwins included. Their score for Strike Up the Band paid homage while creating songs that were sui generis and utterly American. Listen as McWhorter and Maestro John Mauceri – who, at the behest of Mrs. Ira Gershwin, conducted complete recordings of the show’s 1927 and 1930 scores – go deep on orchestration, figuration, and the miracle of the Gershwin brothers’ collaboration.
Also discussed:
• the story of the Gershwin brothers is a great love story. They were a true union and always had each others' back.
• differences between orchestrations for operetta, jazz, and musical theater
• more strings means less seats!• a brief primer on figurations
• songwriters v composers
JOHN MCWHORTER teaches linguistics at Columbia University, as well as Western Civilization and music history. He has written extensively on issues related to linguistics, race, and other topics for Time, the Wall Street Journal, The New Republic and elsewhere, and has been a Contributing Editor at The
Atlantic. He is the author of The Power of Babel, Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue, and other books, including Nine Nasty Words and Woke Racism, both of which were New York Times bestsellers. He hosts the Lexicon Valley language podcast, and has written a weekly newsletter for the New York Times since August 2021.
JOHN MAUCERI has a distinguished and extraordinary career that has brought him to the world’s greatest opera companies and symphony orchestras, the most prestigious halls of academia, and the musical stages of Broadway and Hollywood. He has taken the lead in the restoration and performance of many kinds of music and is an internationally published author. With over 70 albums to his name, he has
been entrusted with editing and restoring works controlled by the families and estates of Richard Rodgers, George Gershwin, Duke Ellington, Harold Arlen, Leonard Bernstein, and others. For sixteen seasons, Maestro Mauceri led the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra. johnmauceri.com
SHOW NOTES/REFERENCES
- Buy tickets to MasterVoices' Strike Up the Band at Carnegie Hall on Tuesday October 29, 2024
Music
The MasterVoices Podcast is a project of the New York City nonprofit MasterVoices (previously The Collegiate Chorale), whose mission is using the human voice to connect, inspire, and unite. Founded in 1941 by Robert Shaw, the Chorale was one of the first integrated choruses in the United States.
Learn more at www.mastervoices.org.