FALL 2018 LECTURES
From the East Side to the West Side: The Jewish West Side Story
A lecture by Elizabeth A. Wells
Dean of Arts and Pickard-Bell Chair in Music, Mount Allison University
with an introduction by Sarah Day-O’Connell
Associate Professor of Music, Skidmore College
THURSDAY, october 25
7 PM, arthur zankel music center, helen filene ladd hall
FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
West Side Story is an iconic musical that galvanized its first audience in 1957. Although the work is about juvenile delinquency in the streets of Manhattan between Puerto Ricans and so-called "Americans," the original story surrounded Catholics and Jews fighting on New York's streets. This presentation investigates the ways in which Jewish music and values continued to infuse the work through its transition to the West Side Story that we all know and love.
About the Jacob Perlow Series: A generous grant from the estate of Jacob Perlow - an immigrant to the United States in the 1920s, a successful business man deeply interested in religion and philosophy, and a man who was committed to furthering Jewish education - supports annual lectures and presentations to the College and Capital District community on issues broadly related to Jews and Judaism.