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The great musical border crosser of the 20th century, George Gershwin excelled in the fields of concert music and popular song alike. The son of Jewish immigrants from Russia, he was born Jacob Gershvin in Brooklyn on September 26, 1898. His father ran a great variety of small businesses, and George, in the words of The New Grove Dictionary of Music, "excelled at street sports." He also studied the piano and was introduced to the European classics by his teacher Charles Hambitzer.

Gershwin immersed himself in popular music after dropping out of school in 1914 and getting a job as a salesman for the music publisher Remick. He was influenced by ragtime and stride piano music, and as a songwriter enjoyed his first hit in 1920 with "Swanee," recorded by the leading vocalist of the time, Al Jolson. Gershwin and his brother Ira became one of the great creative teams in the history of music, each attuned to the considerable subtleties of which the other was capable. Their 1924 musical Lady, Be Good gained wide familiarity thanks to its hit song, "Fascinating Rhythm." George Gershwin also wrote works for the concert hall: Rhapsody in Blue (1924), best known in an orchestration by Ferde Grofé; the Piano Concerto in F of 1925; and 1928's An American in Paris have been audience favorites since their respective premieres. Probably Gershwin's most famous work was the uncategorizable Porgy and Bess; "folk opera" was an early attempt at description. Set among Black residents of Charleston, South Carolina, Porgy and Bess includes the song "Summertime," heavily recorded by both popular and classical artists.

Gershwin continued to write popular songs and musicals; 1930 brought the successful show Girl Crazy and its catchy yet strikingly complex hit number "I Got Rhythm." The 1932 show Of Thee I Sing was especially notable for its crackling political satire. Gershwin went to Hollywood in 1936 to write for the RKO film studio. In early 1937 he began to complain of headaches, but doctors chalked his symptoms up to stress. In reality he was suffering from a brain tumor; he died on July 11, 1937.

The question of Gershwin's status as a classical composer is a live and productive one. Some observers have pointed out the strong resemblances between his popular and concert idioms, and it is certainly true that for all his studies of the classics over the years, Gershwin rarely wrestled with the problem of large-scale form, which one might regard as classical music's most definitive quest. His concert pieces consist of sequences of great melodies -- perhaps expected in a piece called a "rhapsody" but less impressive for music aspiring to the status of "concerto" or even "tone poem," as An American in Paris was classified. Yet it was not only the American public that loved Gershwin's concert works. They were widely performed in Europe, where they shaped the jazz inflections that began to creep into the music of such composers as Maurice Ravel. Even the proponents of the difficult 12-tone system admired Gershwin's music: Gershwin hobnobbed with Alban Berg in Paris and played tennis with Arnold Schoenberg in Hollywood. "It seems to me beyond doubt that Gershwin was an innovator," Schoenberg wrote, and perhaps history will judge Gershwin as the first harbinger of a new music neither classical nor popular, drawing techniques from many sources and forms of musical knowledge. Who could ask for anything more? ~ TiVo Staff

Christian Lindberg is perhaps the first classical trombonist to maintain a successful full-time performing career as a soloist, now considered among the instrument's foremost exponents. Lindberg has also established himself as a conductor and composer.

Lindberg was born in Djursholm, Sweden, on February 15, 1958. He actually took up the trombone fairly late, starting at age 17, after hearing recordings by the great jazz trombonist Jack Teagarden. He studied at the Royal Stockholm Academy of Music, with Sven Erik Eriksson as one of his teachers. At 19, Lindberg became the principal trombonist of the Royal Opera Orchestra in Stockholm. He left that position after just a year, saying he was bored playing in an orchestra. After further studies in Stockholm, he moved to London, where he studied at the Royal College of Music with John Iverson. He continued his studies later in Los Angeles with Ralph Sauer and Roger Bobo. He established himself very quickly in his solo career, beginning with a win at the Nordic Soloists' Biennale competition in 1981. Lindberg made his concert debut in 1984, performing the Henri Tomasi Trombone Concerto. By that time, he had already released his debut album, The Virtuoso Trombone (1983), on the BIS label, with which he has continued to be associated over his long career.

Lindberg regularly plays dozens of concerts a year all over the world, has won many major competitions, gives frequent lectures and masterclasses, and holds the honorary title of Prince Consort Composer at London's Royal College of Music. He has been very active in expanding the repertoire for his instrument. He has premiered over 300 works for trombone, over 90 of which are concertos, and has arranged or transcribed over 100 other works for the trombone. Composers who have written works for him include Alfred Schnittke, Michael Nyman, and Arvo Pärt, among many others. One of his most frequent collaborators has been composer Jan Sandström, who wrote his Motorbike Concerto for Lindberg (which Lindberg performs in costume, as he does other pieces).

With encouragement from Sandström, Lindberg began to compose his own works. His first major composition, Arabenne, for trombone and strings, was completed in 1997 and received its world premiere in 1998. Since then, he has completed over 50 pieces on commission from orchestras all over the world. Lindberg has worked extensively as a conductor with orchestras and ensembles from all over Europe (especially in the Scandinavian countries), China, Japan, and the Americas. He served as principal conductor of the Nordic Chamber Orchestra from 2004 to 2011, the Swedish Wind Ensemble from 2005 to 2012, and, beginning in 2009, the Norwegian Artic Philharmonic Orchestra. One of his major projects, outside of his duties as principal conductor, is a collaboration with the Norrköping Symphony Orchestra on the Allan Pettersson Project, with the goal of recording all of Pettersson's 17 symphonies. In 2022, the cycle reached Pettersson's Symphony No. 15. ~ Keith Finke & Chris Morrison

Roland Pöntinen is a contemporary Swedish pianist and composer known for his vast repertoire and his expertise as both a soloist and an accompanist. He is also a prolific recording artist who appears on over 80 albums. He was born in 1963, in Stockholm, Sweden, and he started playing the piano at a very young age. His father was an engineer and a talented pianist who played at home for his own enjoyment. Pöntinen began improvising at the piano around the age of five, and he also played the violin. His early piano instructors included Asta Schumacher, Vera Knorr, and Stanislav Knorr, and he studied with Gunnar Hallhagen at both the Adolf Frederik’s Music School and the Royal Swedish Academy of Music in Stockholm. Later he sought additional instruction from Menahem Pressler and György Sebok and was later a student of Elisabeth Leonskaja at Indiana University. He became internationally known after his debut performance of Franck’s Symphonic Variations with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra in 1981. That same year, he also appeared on the album Igor Stravinsky: Le Sacre du Printemps; L'Oiseau de Feu; Petrouchka; he composed The Girl from Brazil for trumpet and piano, and Camera for trombone and piano. In 1984, he released his debut solo album, Roland Pöntinen Plays Russian Piano Music, and he has since become a prolific recording artist and collaborator. As an accompanist, Pöntinen is in high demand and he has performed and recorded with Barbara Hendricks, Love Derwinger, Christian Lindberg, and many others. He became a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music in 2002, and at the Verbier Festival of 2007, he performed the world premiere of Shchedrin’s Romantic Duets with the composer. Pöntinen premiered his Danse Serpentine at Wigmore Hall in 2010 with clarinetist Martin Fröst, and he also made an expanded arrangement for chamber ensemble. Later in the 2010s he toured Japan, Taiwan, and Europe, and recorded with the Artic Philharmonic Orchestra led by Christian Lindberg. Since 2020, Pöntinen has released Johannes Brahms: The Five Sonatas for Violin & Piano, Vol. 2, Russian Ballads: Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Kissin, and Szymanowski: Mythes- Music for Violin & Piano. ~ RJ Lambert