Information AboutJerome Kern |
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Jerome Kern was born in New York City . His parents, Fanny and Henry Kern, were both German Jews . They named him Jerome because they lived near Jerome Park, a favourite place of theirs (Jerome Park was named after Leonard Jerome , who was the father of Jennie Jerome , mother of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill ). Fanny encouraged her son to take piano lessons. Henry was a merchandiser and sold pianos among other things. Although Henry wanted his son to go into business with him, Jerome insisted on staying with music. He grew up on East 56th Street in Midtown Manhattan , where he attended public schools. He studied at the New York College Of Music and then in Heidelberg , Germany . When he came back to New York, he started working as a rehearsal pianist, but it didn't take long for him to become a prominent and renowned composer. By 1915 , he was represented in many Broadway shows. In 1920 , he wrote "Look for the Silver Lining" for the musical '' Sally ''. in 1941. This was premiered and first recorded by the Cleveland Orchestra conducted by Artur Rodzinski , the first instance that such an honor had been paid to music from a Broadway show. The musical '' Roberta '' ( 1933 ) gave us "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes" and starred Bob Hope. In 1935 , Jerome Kern moved to Hollywood and started working on music for films but continued working on Broadway productions, too. His last Broadway show was the rather unsuccessful '' Very Warm For May '' in 1939 ; the score included another Kern–Hammerstein classic, "All The Things You Are". Kern's Hollywood career was successful indeed. For '' Swing Time '' (starring Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire ), he wrote "The Way You Look Tonight" (with lyrics by Dorothy Fields ), which won the Academy Award in 1936 for the best song. Some other songs in the film include "A Fine Romance", "Pick Yourself Up", and "Never Gonna Dance". In 1941 , he and Hammerstein wrote "The Last Time I Saw Paris", a homage to the French city just recently occupied by the Germans. The song was introduced in the movie '' Lady Be Good '' and won another Oscar for Best Song. Although Kern generally wrote for Musical Theatre , the harmonic richness of his Composition s lend themselves well to the Jazz idiom, which typically emphasizes Improvisation based on a harmonic structure — many have been adopted by Jazz Musician s and have become Standard Tune s. Jerome Kern died from a Heart Attack at the age of 60 in New York . He was due to compose the score for the musical Annie Get Your Gun but following his death, the task was passed to Irving Berlin. COMPLETE WORK FOR BROADWAY Note: All shows are Musical Comedies for which Kern was the sole Composer unless otherwise specified. During his first phase of work for Broadway theater (1904-11), Kern wrote songs that were featured in Revue s or other collaborative musicals and occasionally co-wrote comic musicals with one or two other composers.
Beginning in 1912, the more-experienced Kern began to work on dramatically-concerned shows, including music for plays, and for the first time in his young career, he wrote musicals as the sole composer. His regular lyricist collaborators during this period were Guy Bolton , P. G. Wodehouse , Harry B. Smith , Anne Caldwell , and Howard Dietz .
During the last phase of his life, Jerome Kern continued to work with his previous collaborators but also met Oscar Hammerstein II and Otto Harbach , with whom Kern wrote his most lasting, memorable, and well-known works.
In addition to Revivals of his most popular shows, the music of Jerome Kern was Posthumously featured in a variety of revues, musicals, and concerts on Broadway.
CLASSICAL WORKS
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