Frankfurter Opern- und Museumsorchester

‘Why do you want to be a second-rate Ravel when you can be a first-rate Gershwin?’ With these words, Maurice Ravel is said to have refused to give the American jazz composer, 23 years his junior, lessons in classical composition and orchestration.
It was no different for George Gershwin with the famous Nadia Boulanger, probably the most sought-after composition teacher of her time. It is said that George Gershwin was also turned down by her in 1928. The young Leonard Bernstein was luckier and was able to attend Nadia Boulanger's composition courses in Fontainebleau 30 years later. Lili Boulanger, Nadia's younger sister who died at an early age, was considered the far more talented composer - and so we come full circle in a programme that is as rich in associations as it is entertaining, with which the conductor Giancarlo Guerrero, who grew up in Costa Rica, returns to the museum concerts after several successful conducting engagements.
In Gershwin's Concerto in F, he will be joined by Stewart Goodyear, who is also not a new face for museum audiences: in 2016, he performed Gershwin's ‘other piano concerto’, Rhapsody in Blue.
(Frankfurter Museums-Gesellschaft e.V.)