ESM, Press honor orchestrator Bennett

Bennett is principally responsible for what is known worldwide as the "Broadway sound" and for elevating the status of the theater orchestrator. He worked

Bennett

alongside Jerome Kern, Cole Porter, George Gershwin, Irving Berlin, Richard Rodgers, and Frederick Loewe on much of the Broadway canon. Among the more than 300 musicals on which he collaborated are My Fair Lady, South Pacific, Show Boat, The Sound of Music, and Oklahoma!, for which he won an Oscar for the film score in 1956.

This month, the Press --which is celebrating its 10th anniversary--will publish a volume of Bennett's writings, including his previously unpublished autobiography. In honor of this book--The Broadway Sound: The Autobiography and Selected Essays of Robert Russell Bennett--ESM and the Press are jointly hosting a book launch, public lecture, and concert highlighting Bennett's music.

George Ferencz, editor of The Broadway Sound and professor of music at the University of Wisconsin­Whitewater, will give a talk about Bennett, illustrated with slides and photos, on Wednesday, November 17, at 7 p.m. in Kilbourn Hall. (The book launch will be part of the lecture.) A concert--titled "Instrumentally Speaking: A Tribute to Robert Russell Bennett"--will follow at 8 p.m., also in Kilbourn Hall, and will feature the Eastman Wind Ensemble conducted by James Ripley. (The concert's title comes from Bennett's 1975 book on arranging: Instrumentally Speaking.) After the concert, a reception will be held in the Cominsky Promenade on the second floor of ESM's main building.

The first half of the concert will be composed of The Sword in the Stone by Benjamin Britten and Ragtimes and Habaneras by Hans Werner Henze. The second half of the concert will consist entirely of works and arrangements by Bennett for wind ensemble. These include Autobiography, Four Preludes, and his arrangements of excerpts from four Broadway shows: Jerome Kern's Music in the Air; Vincent Youmans's No, No, Nanette; Cole Porter's Can Can; and George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess.

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