Jerome Robbins is world renowned for his work as a choreographer of ballets as well as his work as a director and choreographer in theater, movies and television. His Broadway shows include On the Town, Billion Dollar Baby, High Button Shoes, West Side Story, The King and I, Gypsy, Peter Pan, Miss Liberty, Call Me Madam, and Fiddler on the Roof. His last Broadway production in 1989, Jerome Robbins’ Broadway, won six Tony Awards including Best Musical and Best Director.

Any single aspect of Leonard Bernstein’s (August 25, 1918- October 14, 1990) musical life is a complete story unto itself. Born to Ukrainian-Jewish immigrants, Bernstein was raised in the Lawrence, MA. With only mild encouragement from his family, Bernstein took up piano and composition as a child and studied both while at Harvard. At the Curtis Institute of Music, Bernstein added conducting his musical studies. Bernstein’s storied rise to conducting superstardom did not end his astonishing productivity as a pianist, educator, or composer. He wrote just about every genre of music, including symphonic, choral, vocal, piano, chamber music, film, ballet and, most famously, musical theater.
– Beatrice Jona Affron

It is difficult to overstate the depth and breadth of the artistry and influence of choreographer George Balanchine. Called the ‘Father of American Ballet,’ he combined a reverence for the classical training he received as a boy in St. Petersburg with ferocious originality and commitment to modernism. He and his many brilliant collaborators, including Sergei Diaghilev, Igor Stravinsky, Georges Rouault, and Karinska, among many, many others, transformed ballet into a 20th century artform. Balanchine’s influence as a teacher is every bit as paradigm-changing as the repertoire he created. When our own founder, Barbara Weisberger (herself a protégée of Balanchine) conceived of Philadelphia Ballet, Balanchine insisted, “But first, a school.”

George Gershwin (born Jacob Gershwine) was born in New York City, the second of four children of Eastern European Jewish immigrants. He spent most of his childhood on the Lower East Side, also known then as the Yiddish Theater District. At ten years old, Gershwin fell in love with the piano and began to study seriously. At fifteen, he quit school to become a song plugger on Tin Pan Alley and at twenty, he composed his first national hit “Swanee”, made famous by Al Jolson.

In the next eighteen years, George Gershwin led a life of dizzying productivity while at the same time setting an enduring standard for crossover artistry with works like Rhapsody in Blue and An American in Paris, in which he showed how jazz and classical idioms could be combined. Numerous Broadway shows followed, many composed in collaboration with his lyricist brother, Ira. Perhaps his most ambitious and problematic work was the opera, Porgy and Bess (1935). After the commercial failure of this tour de force, Gershwin and his wife, Leonore, moved to Hollywood. George went right to work writing wonderful songs for Shall We Dance (1936) starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. Tragically, Gershwin became ill shortly after the film’s premiere. He was only 38 when he died of brain cancer, diagnosed years too late. George Gershwin left behind a cherished collection of songs and instrumental works that make up one of the pillars of American music.
– Beatrice Jona Affron

Eliot Feld began his education at Yeshiva before transferring to public school and starting dance training at age eight with modern dancer Ronne Aul. At eleven, Feld was accepted into the School of American Ballet and soon performed as the Child Prince in the premiere season of George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker with New York City Ballet. He studied with many renowned teachers and attended the High School of Performing Arts.

At sixteen, Feld joined the Broadway cast of West Side Story, later appearing in the film version, as well as I Can Get It for You Wholesale and Fiddler on the Roof. He joined American Ballet Theatre in 1963, becoming a principal dancer in 1968 and debuting as a choreographer in 1967. Feld later founded several companies, choreographed over 100 ballets, established Ballet Tech and the Joyce Theater, and remains a major figure in American dance.

Charles Ives (October 20, 1874 – May 19, 1954) was one of the most singular American composers of the 20th century. Born in Danbury, CT, he was particularly close with his father, a businessman and veteran Civil War bandleader. Charles studied piano as a young child and soon developed a fascination with the organ, which he began to play professionally at only 14 years old. At around the same time, Ives began to compose little marches and circus tunes, inspired by the music around him. This would be the foundation of his later work; the hallmark of Ives’s music is his way of combining separate and unrelated melodies, such as the sound of a parade as it walks past a church while a hymn is being sung. After graduating from Yale with a degree in music, Ives heeded his father’s advice and moved to New York City to start a career in business. Establishing a successful insurance firm did not slow down his astonishing musical output. But at only 44 years old, Ives suffered a heart attack lived in retirement for the last third of his life.
– Beatrice Jona Affron

William Schuman (August 4, 1910 – February 15, 1992) was born and raised in New York City. He played violin and banjo as a child, but his first real love was baseball. (He would go on to compose the opera, The Mighty Casey, based on “Casey at the Bat”). Schuman studied business at NYU, but after writing a song with lyricist Frank Loesser, and after attending his first symphony concert, conducted by Arturo Toscanini, Schuman decided to change course and study music. Schuman won the inaugural Pulitzer Prize for music and went on to compose a large catalog of symphonic, vocal, chamber and theatrical works, including Night Journey for Martha Graham. Schuman served as president of the Juilliard School in 1945 to 1961, when he became the president of Lincoln Center.
– Beatrice Jona Affron

John Philip Sousa, also known as the “American March King” was a prolific composer of marches and operettas. Next to the flag itself, Sousa’s music is perhaps the most recognized symbol of American patriotism. In 1987, by act of the U.S. congress, Sousa’s “The Stars and Stripes Forever” was designated the national march of the United States.
– Beatrice Jona Affron

Hershy Kay was born in Philadelphia and studied composition under Randall Thompson at the Curtis Institute of Music. Kay was a friend and classmate of Leonard Bernstein, who engaged him early on to orchestrate his musical, On the Town. This was the beginning of a busy career as a Broadway orchestrator and as a composer in his own right. Kay composed and orchestrated no fewer than seven works for New York City Ballet, including Western Symphony, Tarantella, Who Cares?, and Stars and Stripes.
– Beatrice Jona Affron