MassMu Brown Bag Features Popular Music Expert

Michael Lasser—music historian, author, and broadcaster—will speak about the popular music of a century ago on Tuesday, April 28, at Kent State University Stark Campus Main Hall Auditorium (6000 Frank Road Northwest, Canton) at 7:00 p.m. The lecture free and open to the public.

Lasser’s program, “The Hip-Hooray and Bally-Hoo: Popular Music’s Take on New York City,” will emphasize the romantic image of New York that appeared in thousands of popular songs in the early 1900s. He will illustrate how Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern, Richard Rodgers, George Gershwin, and other songwriters gave voice to America’s image of itself—symbolized by New York City— in tight, jazzy songs that spoke for the nation’s heart.

“[Life in New York] was a strange cacophonous dream never before imagined in all of human history, as pulsating and noisy as it was romantic,” Lasser said. “It was a dream about a place where people came to seek life at its most exciting and make a fortune in the bargain. They lived in a city that chose to believe anything was possible, and then acted as if it believed the dream.”

Massillon Museum Curator Alexandra Nicholis invited Lasser to Stark County to accentuate the Massillon Museum’s main gallery exhibition of 50 black-and-white photographs of 1930s New York—“The Rise of a Landmark: Lewis Hine and the Empire State Building.”

Lasser and Philip Furia co-authored the recent book, America’s Songs: The Stories Behind the Songs of Broadway, Hollywood and Tin Pan Alley. After his program, books will be available for sale, and the author will sign copies for guests.

Since 1980, Lasser has hosted the nationally-syndicated public radio show, “Fascinatin’ Rhythm,” winner of a 1994 Peabody Award for letting “our treasury of popular tunes speak (and sing) for itself with sparkling commentary, tracing the contributions of the composers and performers to American society.”

A graduate of Dartmouth College, Lasser is the former theater critic for The Rochester Democrat & Chronicle. For nearly 25 years has spoken at museums and universities across the nation, among them the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Smithsonian National Museum of American Art. He is working on a new book, That Pleasant Ache: How Love Songs Sang About Us, 1900–1950.

Lasser will also speak at the Massillon Museum’s Brown Bag lunch at noon on Tuesday, April 28. The event, which will be held in the Museum lobby, is free and open to the public. No reservations are required, but seats fill early. Brown Bag guests may bring a sack lunch or purchase lunch from the Chit Chat Coffee Shoppe in the lobby of the Museum. The Museum will serve free cookies and coffee.

The Massillon Museum is located at 121 Lincoln Way East in downtown Massillon. For more information, call the Massillon Museum at 330-833-4061 or visit www.massillonmuseum.org.

Lasser’s programs are funded by a grant from the Ohio Humanities Council. “The Rise of a Landmark: Lewis Hine and the Empire State Building” was organized by and is traveling under the auspices of George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film.

Media Contacts:

Christine Shearer, Massillon Museum Director - 330-833-4061

Alexandra Nicholis, Massillon Museum Curator - 330-833-4061

Margy Vogt, Museum Public Relations & Lunch Series Chair - 330-844-1525