Concerts in NEW YORK   Concerts in LONDON   Concerts in OXFORD   Concerts ELSEWHERE	NEW YORK CONCERTS       Jack Gibbons returns to Carnegie Hall on Friday September 26th 2008. Read on for more details... . . Click on the above image to visit Carnegie Hall's site   . Friday, September 26th 2008 at 8.00 PM Carnegie Recital Hall, New York JACK GIBBONS plays GEORGE GERSHWIN in celebration of Gershwin's 110th birthday "Jack Gibbons is utterly unique in the music world... the only one in the world who has been able to recreate the original Gershwin sound" (WNYC, New York) “Irrepressible… no one plays Gershwin with quite as much devil-may-care fervour as Jack Gibbons (The Times) "Gibbons incarnates an uncanny representation of Gershwin's piano style that hasn't been heard since the glory days of Oscar Levant." (VILLAGE VOICE, New York)   Program: Rhapsody in Blue Porgy and Bess Suite (complete) and Gershwin's spectacular show-tune improvisations plus some of GIBBONS' own latest compositions     Jack Gibbons, widely regarded as one of the world's finest exponents of Gershwin returns to New York's historic Carnegie Hall to celebrate the 110th birthday of New York's most famous musical son, George Gershwin. This special concert will feature some of Gershwin's most spectacular and best-loved concert works, Rhapsody in Blue (meticulously reconstructed from the composer's original piano-roll recording) and Gershwin's original Porgy and Bess Suite. In addition Gibbons' program will be filled with the breathtaking and exuberant show-tune improvisations with which Gershwin dazzled New York party-goers in the 1920s and 30s and which made his piano playing legendary.                     Gibbons has transcribed and reconstructed over 5 hours of Gershwin's original recordings (now the subject of an award-winning CD series entitled The Authentic George Gershwin) and many of the items in his Carnegie Hall will not have been played in New York since the composer's own performances in the 1920s!     Click the video button to watch Jack Gibbons playing extracts from Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, I Got Rhythm, etc and talking about his authentic Gershwin recreations, with Gershwin biographer Edward Jablonski and broadcaster Selina Scott. The video also includes rare archive films of Gershwin himself:       GERSHWIN... George Gershwin described himself as a "Modern Romantic" and the exuberance, vitality and warmth of his music epitomizes the exciting and heady days of New York and America in the 1920s. Gershwin's keyboard skills made his piano playing legendary at New York parties in the 1920s and 30s. The piano was the centre of Gershwin's life, and he never tired of performing, whether to an audience of one or thousands. According to a friend Rouben Mamoulian (director of the very first Porgy and Bess production): "George loved playing the piano for people and would do so at the slightest provocation... I am sure that most of his friends, in thinking of George at his best, think of him at the piano. I've heard many pianists and composers play for informal gatherings, but know of no one who did it with such genuine delight and verve. George at the piano was George happy". During the 1920s Gershwin's piano-playing was captured on 78s in rare acoustic recordings of his show-tune improvisations; Gibbons' note-for-note reconstructions of Gershwin's improvisations, transcribed by Gibbons directly from these original recordings, give a flavor of the unique and spectacular piano style that made Gershwin's piano-playing so famous. "Jack Gibbons is able to reproduce Gershwin as Gershwin performed, in a remarkable recreation of Gershwin's unique keyboard style. Hearing Jack Gibbons perform is like being at a Gershwin party, in a sense like being with Gershwin" (Edward Jablonski, biographer of George Gershwin, New York 1998) "Jack Gibbons is utterly unique in the music world. I venture to say that he may be the only one in the world who has been able to recreate the original Gershwin sound. Hearing him play I think to myself this sounds more like Gershwin's old recordings than anything I've heard. It's astonishing." (WNYC, New York City) GIBBONS... Gibbons has been described by the press as “a composer of distinction”, his music “deeply moving”. His Lullaby, honoring the memory of Gershwin’s biographer Edward Jablonski and performed at Carnegie Hall in 2005, was described as “capturing a unique American wistfulness and vastness of loneliness that also marks the Andante of Dvorak's 9th Symphony and the 2nd movement of Barber's violin concerto”. Jack Gibbons began writing music at the age of 9, his first work being a two movement Sonata in C major. By the age of 13 he had written and fully orchestrated a three movement piano concerto as well as a large collection of virtuoso piano pieces and songs. At 14 the distinguished British composer Sir Lennox Berkeley awarded him a special composition prize for his Piano Rhapsody. Since then his performing career prevented him from pursuing his own writing. With time on his hands during his recovery from a life threatening car accident in 2001 Gibbons began writing again for the first time in 25 years. He has since had his music performed with great success at Carnegie Hall in New York, the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London, and elsewhere, and recorded by the BBC. Jack has been invited to be a composer in residence at the Italian home of Lady Walton (widow of composer William Walton) and has also recently been asked to work with Pulitzer prize-winning author N. Scott Momaday on a song cycle for the great American soprano Leona Mitchell. Gibbons' recent music to date includes over 30 songs (mostly for soprano), 18 piano works, and two works for string orchestra.
mmmm
	More about the performer Hailed by the Sunday Times as "a remarkable talent", JACK GIBBONS is widely recognized on both sides of the Atlantic as one of the finest pianists of his generation, his concerts being regularly received with standing ovations at New York's Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, and at London's Queen Elizabeth Hall, where he has appeared annually for the last 16 years. Described as "an awe-inspiring and prodigiously gifted classical pianist" by the London Times, Jack Gibbons was hailed by the BBC as "THE Gershwin pianist of our time" following his triumphant debut at the famous BBC Promenade concerts in the Royal Albert Hall in 1995. In 2002 he won special praise for having fought his way back from a near-fatal car accident to perform once again to capacity crowds at London's Queen Elizabeth Hall and New York's Carnegie Hall. The British press described his achievement as "miraculous" and "gutsy". New York's Time Out wrote of his Carnegie Hall come-back concert: "The vivacious British Gershwin specialist made a triumphant return to the New York stage after spending most of the year convalescing from a terrible automobile accident. Welcome back, Jack!" Jack Gibbons began performing in public at the age of 10 and gave his London debut at 17 with an all-Alkan program that included the legendary Concerto for Solo Piano (recordings of the concert were subsequently requested by the BBC and the Juilliard School of Music in New York). At the age of 20 Gibbons won First Prize in the Newport International Pianoforte Competition with a performance of Beethoven’s Fourth Concerto which was described by the jury as "masterly". In 1994 he gave his New York and Washington DC debuts to tremendous acclaim, and the following year made his debut at the BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall, performing the work with which he has become so closely associated – George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue. His highly popular recitals at London’s Queen Elizabeth Hall have been an annual feature at the South Bank for the last sixteen years. Jack Gibbons also performs frequently with major orchestras from the UK and US, including the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic, Hallé, etc.. In 1998, the centenary of Gershwin’s birth, he performed his unique Gershwin recreations throughout the world, giving concerts in the UK, Holland, France, Italy, Czech Republic, Australia, Africa and the USA. Jack Gibbons' performances have been described by the press as "compulsively communicative"; in addition to his playing Gibbons regularly intersperses his programs with brief anecdotes and musical illustrations, revealing secrets of the music he plays in a way that is both educational and highly entertaining. Jack Gibbons’ recording credits include a Gramophone Award nomination, MRA awards, and numerous special commendations by CD magazines, newspapers etc. His award-winning "Authentic George Gershwin" series on ASV/Sanctuary features the first modern recordings of over 4½ hours of original Gershwin material and has been described in the media as "a unique testimony to Gershwin's genius". The latest volume to be released (Volume 4, "The Hollywood Years") was described by Classic CD magazine as "unimpeachable... all the superlatives already heaped on Volumes 1-3 of Jack Gibbons' ASV series ‘The Authentic George Gershwin’ can be re-amassed on Volume 4". Classic FM magazine described the new album as "a real labour of love and not a little musical scholarship - though you’d never guess it from Gibbons’s infectious playing". (More information on Jack Gibbons' CD series, "The Authentic George Gershwin", and other recordings can be found by visiting the recording page.) Jack Gibbons is also well known for his performances of Chopin, of whom he has made a special study, and of Chopin’s less well known contemporary, virtuoso pianist/composer Charles-Valentin Alkan. In January 1995 Jack Gibbons gave the first performance in history of the complete Opus 39 Studies of Alkan in a single 3-hour-long concert in the university city of Oxford, England. He repeated the event a year later before a sell-out audience at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, London, the Times described the event as "awe-inspiring". Amongst Jack Gibbons' other achievements can be listed his concept for the promotion of young artists in the music profession. Gibbons' ideas became reality thanks to the generosity of multi-national company W. H. Smith who backed the project and formed what is now known as the Young Concert Artists Trust (or YCAT), a lasting legacy for young professional musicians, providing help and guidance at the beginning of their careers.
	As both performer and speaker Jack Gibbons has broadcast extensively both in the UK and in the USA, Europe, Australia and the Middle East. In celebration of the Gershwin Centenary he wrote and presented a feature program for the BBC entitled "Gershwin in Focus" with Oscar-winning actor Ben Kingsley as the voice of George Gershwin. Gibbons' relaxed and communicative performing style translates well into the broadcasting medium and his informative and entertaining descriptions of the music he plays have been singled out for particular praise in the press.

Back to Top