The Songwriters. A conversation about two of the greatest songwriters, composer George Gershwin and lyricist Ira Gershwin, and the role of literacy and jazz in popular songwriting.

All Programs VIA ZOOM.

Dates and Program titles:

Sept 14^th 12-2pm: 

Say it with a Beautiful Song: The Great American Songbook. A conversation about what it is, what distinguishes it, and why its appeal persists.

October 19^th 12-2pm:

Say it with a Beautiful Song: The Songwriters. A conversation about two of the greatest songwriters, composer George Gershwin and lyricist Ira Gershwin, and the role of literacy and jazz in popular songwriting. 

November 16^th 12-2pm:

Say it with a Beautiful Song: The Singers. There were a lot of good ones from Rosemary Clooney to Frank Sinatra, but here’s the surprise. One of the greatest of them was Fred Astaire.

*** IN PERSON December 21^th 12-2pm:

Say it with a Beautiful Song: The Songs. The collaborations, the conversational lyric, the inventiveness, and the breadth of emotion. The song we’ll focus on is Henry Mancini and Johnny Mercer’s “Moon River.”

Michael Lasser is a writer and speaker. His most recent book, Say It with a Beautiful Song: The Art and Craft of the Great American Songbook, is now available. He is also the co-author (with Philip Furia) of America’s Songs: The Stories Behind the Songs of Broadway, Hollywood and Tin Pan Alley (2006), and the author of America’s Songs II: From the 1890s to the Post-War Years (2013) and City Songs and American Life, 1900-1950 (2019). His nationally syndicated public radio show, Fascinatin’ Rhythm, was on the air from 1980-2021, and won a 1994 Peabody Award. A graduate of Dartmouth College, he is the former theater critic for the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle and CITY, and speaks often at museums, arts centers, and universities around the country. He taught English in independent schools for forty years, including thirty-two of them at The Harley School. In 2010, he was named a Thomas P. Johnson Distinguished Visiting Scholar at Rollins College and in 2022 was a Visiting Scholar at The Waterford School near Salt Lake City, and the Trevor Day School in New York City.