Gershwin is the American equivalent of Verdi

Within the framework of the project “U.S. Art Residence in Dnipropetrovsk” the session of English speaking club GABFEST was dedicated to George and Ira Gershwin and took place at the DOUNB library Art department.
The session’s moderator T.Gavryliuk prepared an informative slide show “Verdi of America”. The slide show presented important facts about the life of the cult American composer and illustrated them with relevant images. The Club members had to read and translate the slides’ texts, to answer the moderator’s questions.
The most complicated language activity offered to the club members was to render into English the speech of the guest lecturer. The guest lecturer invited to the session was Doctor of Musical science Ms. Iryna Riabtseva. She is a lecturer at the Dnipropetrovsk Conservatorium and a member of the National Composers’ Association of Ukraine. She presented a lecture “George Gershwin – the legend and the symbol”. The lecture covered several important topics – Gershwin’s educational background, the dynamics of his musical career, analysis of his best known musical works “Rhapsody in Blue” (1924), Piano Concerto in F (1925), opera “ Porgy and Bess” (1935).

The audience had a chance to enjoy the musical videos from the Internet compiled by S.Usenko and an excerpt from the movie “The American in Paris” (part of the WOA’s US Classical Movie collection). This movie will be screened on Wednesday, October, 22 at a Movie club session.
The final surprise of the session was a live performance of a Gershwin’s potpourri by the students of Dnipropetrovsk Conservatorium - Dariya Oleksienko (piano) and Oleksiy Movchan (saxophone). The Club members were delighted with the live music and the new format of the language session. The guests received the round of applause and autumn flowers.

The Club session was complemented with the book and image display “American Muisc and Musicians”; the books used for the display were in three languages and belong to several departments of the DOUNB library.
The hostess of the session S. Ponomarenko invited the colleagues and the guests for an after-event tea. With the background of Gershwin’s music we discussed the plans for future cooperation of the DOUNB Library and Dnipropetrovsk Conservatorium.
Participants number – 35 persons.
Have a look at more pictures, please