With Oregon Festival of American Music 2013, we begin a 2 year celebration of the classic American Songbook in Hollywood. This summer we focus on the 1930s and early '40s--those early years of the Hollywood's golden age when the motion picture industry was maturing into the full potential of its sound-enabled medium and of its national, and indeed international, market. Next summer, with Hollywood: The Sequel we move forward to the 1940s and '50s, as the industry and its songwriters continued that development in the face of changing tastes and popular culture.
This August 6-10, Festival music director Ken Peplowski and company touch upon the best of 1930s and early '40s Hollywood-based songwriting, with concerts designed around key aspects of those years, including the seminal 1930s RKO films of Ginger Rogers & Fred Astaire, Bing Crosby's prodigious 1930s-40s Paramount output, the Bob Hope-Bing Crosby-Dorothy Lamour 1940s "Road" pictures, 1930s cartoon music, the music of Casablanca, and the early 1940s film appearances of the Andrews Sisters and the great Swing Era big bands .
Finally, this summer's classic musical will be Meredith Willson's The Music Man. Starring Shedd Institute and OFAM favorites Shirley Andress and Bill Hulings, our fresh new production previews Friday, August 2, with a 5-performance run August 3-11.
Tickets are on sale now at The Shedd Institute Ticket Office at 541-434-7000 or 868 High Street, MF 9-6 pm and Sat 9-noon. Ask about our special OFAM 2013 package discounts!