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Michael Feinstein’s Songbook

Jan 25, 2011 by Rusty Cutchin

Update, 2/7/11: See the NY Times article about Michael Feinstein’s collection and foundation here.

Michael Feinstein is a busy man.

If there’s a more dedicated and effective champion of America’s pop music heritage than Michael Feinstein, it’s hard to imagine whom it might be. Celebrated as a performer, historian, and now artistic director for and contributor to an Indiana performing-arts center that houses his collection of music memorabilia, Feinstein is the recognized leader of the movement to keep the music associated with names like Sinatra, Bennett, Garland, and Clooney, not to mention Gershwin, Rodgers, Porter, and hundreds of others, prominent if not front and center in American culture.

The Palladium, a $118 million concert hall at the Center for Performing Arts in Carmel, Indiana, houses Michael Feinstein's collection as the Great American Songbook Archive & Museum.

The Michael Feinstein Foundation (for the preservation of the great American songbook) not only hosts talent competitions for young singers of the pre-rock canon, but also is the prime contributor to the archives housed at the Center for Performing Arts, which opened this week in Carmel, Indiana, outside Indianapolis. The foundation’s offices also will reside there.

Add to that Feinstein’s ongoing involvement as owner of and frequent performer at Feinstein’s at the Regency in New York , and his various video, Broadway, and recording projects, and you get a sense of the man’s schedule and the enormous influence he’s had on those who work on behalf of music that has been under siege for over 50 years, often by those who are now some of its champions.
See the fruits of Feinstein’s amazing collections and knowledge here:

PBS’s “From the Collection of Michael Feinstein”

Michael Feinstein’s American Songbook

Watch this space for more news on Feinstein’s projects. Meanwhile, here’s a sampling:

The Sinatra Project

Fly Me to the Moon

Michael Feinstein’s
American Songbook

The Great American Songbook

See more Michael Feinstein CDs and DVDs here