In 1928 George Gershwin, the famous American composer of popular songs, requested music lessons from Maurice Ravel, the celebrated French composer of “classical” opera, orchestral tone poems, and chamber music.   Ravel joked that he should take lessons from Gershwin instead, knowing how wealthy Gershwin had become, writing music for “Tin-Pan Alley” and the “Follies.”  In the first decades of the twentieth century,  American popular music captured the imagination of the whole world, including the most sophisticated European composers of “art music.”  Join us in historic 1880 Garten Verein dance pavilion for a concert of George Gershwin favorites plus a masterpiece by Maurice Ravel inspired by the “American sound.”