Chattanooga Symphony & Opera Presents HERE TO STAY: THE GERSHWIN EXPERIENCE Tonight

The CSO's last Luken Holdings Pops Series concert of the 2013/14 season pays tribute to the greatest team of collaborators in American music history - George and Ira Gershwin. Here to Stay: The Gershwin Experience is a multi-media concert with a top-notch touring party, including Grammy Award-winning soprano Sylvia McNair. This concert event provides an unprecedented insider view into the legendary duo, and offers rare audio and video footage of the Gershwins.

The Gershwins began their collaboration in music in 1924. They created their first joint hit, Lady, Be Good!, for Fred and Adele Astaire and followed it with more than 20 scores for stage and screen, including Oh, Kay! for Gertrude Lawrence; two versions of Strike Up the Band (1927 and 1930); Ethel Merman's introduction to Broadway, Girl Crazy (1930); Shall We Dance (1937), one of Hollywood's stylish pairings of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers; and the triumphant folk opera, Porgy and Bess, written with DuBose Heyward. Here to Stay: The Gershwin Experience will include such hits as "Strike Up the Band", "Embraceable You", "Rhapsody in Blue", "I Got Rhythm", and more.

Luken Holdings Pops Series

Here to Stay - The Gershwin Experience

Concert sponsored by Baker Donelson

Tonight, April 5, 2014 at 7:30pm Tivoli Theatre

Bob Bernhardt, conductor
David Snyder, conductor, piano and vocals Sylvia McNair, vocals
Ryan VanDenBoom vocals, tap dancer Jeffrey Biegel, piano

Tickets are available at www.chattanoogasymphony.org, or by calling 423.267.8583.

The music and lyrics for Here to Stay: The Gershwin Experience were provided through special arrangement with members of the George Gershwin Family and the Ira and Leonore Gershwin Trusts.

Sylvia McNair

Two-time Grammy Award winner and regional Emmy Award winner, Sylvia McNairlays claim to a three-decade, stellar career in the musical realms of opera, oratorio, cabaret and musical theater. She's holding out hope for a Tony and an Oscar, but she isn't getting any younger. Her journey has taken her from the Metropolitan Opera to the Salzburg Festival, from the New York Philharmonic to the Rainbow Room, from the Ravinia Festival to The Plaza, from the pages of The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal to the London Times and the cover of Cabaret Scenes. Having appeared as a soloist multiple times with nearly every major opera company and symphony orchestra in the world, this songbird has flown the classical coop. She's retracing her star route now with Gershwin, Porter, Sondheim and Bernstein.

Sylvia has left an indelible audio trail documenting her vocal prowess with over 70 recordings ranging from Mozart arias with Sir Neville Marriner and the Academy of St.-Martin-in-the-Fields to the music of Jerome Kern and Harold Arlen with pianist Andre? Previn. In the past season, Sylvia released a Christmas CD, PEACE, and ROMANCE, a disc of Latin American jazz standards. PEACE sold out its first run in a matter of weeks. ROMANCE received a rave review from Fanfare Magazine's Lynn Rene? Bayley: "...here the record is, and it's fabulous. In fact, it's the biggest surprise of its kind I've encountered since Diana Ross's live album of Billie Holiday standards."

A proud Buckeye from Mansfield, Ohio, Sylvia earned a Masters degree with Distinction from the Indiana University School of Music, received honorary doctorates from Westminster College (1997) and Indiana University (1998), the Ohio Governor's Award for Outstanding Achievement in Arts and Entertainment (1999), and the Indiana Governor's Arts Award (2011). She joined the prestigious voice faculty of the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University in 2006. In 2007, Sylvia received The Gaudium Award from The Breukelein Institute for "extraordinary and distinctive contributions to the arts and public life."

About Us

The mission of the Chattanooga Symphony & Opera is to inspire, engage, and enrich the greater Chattanooga community through music and music education.

The 2013-14 season marks 81 seasons for the CSO, which played its first concert on November 5, 1933. The CSO, conducted by Music Director Kayoko Dan, consists of top players from the Chattanooga area as well as from across the southern region. The CSO performs a full season of Masterworks, Pops, Chamber, and Volkswagen Series concerts from September through May, as well as a variety of community, education and engagement events throughout the year.

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