Michael Lasser In Person

	Somebody once asked a gospel singer if he was an entertainer or a preacher. He answered, “Yes.” Michael Lasser’s talks at museums, universities, and libraries all over the country are, likewise, a mix of substance and entertainment, serious purpose and lighthearted irreverence. After all, he says, “I’m talking about popular songs, not the future of the Republic.” That doesn’t mean he isn’t serious about American songs and the men and women who wrote them. As he explains:			“One of the most telling moments happened at the end when you asked if anyone had questions. One visitor said, ‘Yes. Is there any more!’” Melinda Georgeson Director of Education The Norman Rockwell Museum
	"I do think popular music has something valuable to tell us about ourselves if we stop and listen to it. It opens a revealing and entertaining window on American attitudes for the last 150 years. For the last 25 of those years, I've been talking about popular music as social history--about songs and the America they reflect." Lasser’s subjects range from the beginnings of the minstrel show in the 1830s to the arrival of rock ‘n’ roll in the 1950s. In the last years, he’s averaged more than two dozen talks and concerts per year in a total of 36 states and the District of Columbia – from Maine to California, Florida to Washington, Mississippi to Minnesota. In addition to the talks, he also performs with singers Cindy Miller and Alan Jones. “Nobody in his right mind wants to hear me sing,” he says, “but Cindy and Alan have a gift for being able to perform the songs of two centuries with insight and delight, and my job is to give the songs context in an entertaining way.” For more information about talks select the links below: Current Calendar for Scheduled Talks Talks and Concerts - a partial list of available programs Select comments from talk organizers Where Michael has given his talks
	Calendar of Scheduled Talks 2012 "All the Old Familiar Places": Love Songs of Depression and War Saturday, February 11, 2012 Talk Wichita-Sedgwick County Historical Museum "Let's All Be Americans Now": Popular Music and the Melting Pot Sunday, February 19, 2012 Talk Drake Memorial Library, SUNY-Brockport "Nice Work if You Can Get It": What Work Songs Say About Us Tuesday, February 21, 2012 Talk National Churchill Museum, Fulton, MO "To See as Songwriters See" Friday, March 9, 2012, Talk Frist Center for Visual Arts, Nashville Jewish Songwriters and the Making of American Song Tuesday, March 20, 2012 Talk Georgia Southern University Library, Statesboro, GA "Harlem on My Mind": Songs for Americans in Paris Sunday, April 1, 2012 Talk Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts Riding the Rainbow/Writing the Rainbow: The Lyrics of Yip Harburg Tuesday, April 3, 2012 Talk with singers C. W. Post Campus of Long Island University Twentieth Century Love: Modernism & American Popular Song Tuesday, June 14, 2012 Talk Cape Cod Museum of Art Ragtime Tuesday, July 17, 2012 Talk with singers Osher Senior Center "Halfway to Heaven": Songs from the Time of the American Impressionists Thursday, September 9, 2012 Talk New Britain Museum of American "All of the Old Familiar Places": Love Songs of Depression and War Sunday, September 23, 2012 Talk ITOW Museum, Perlham, MN "You'll Rule This Land with Me": Jay Gatsby's Dream and the Popular Songs of the Twenties Saturday, November 10 or 17, 2012 Talk Wichita Public Library, Wichita, KS
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