Senior Happening: Fred Miller Presents "Lecture-in-Song: When Oscar Was King!"

The Livingston Public Library invites the public to our Senior Happening event on Friday, March 21st at 1pm featuring “When Oscar was King!”  performed by Fred Miller. 

The celebrated Oscars awarded by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences herald a glamorous tradition dating back to May 1929, when the first awards ceremony was held at Hollywood's Roosevelt Hotel. The first gathering honored acting & technical merit in film for the two previous years.

It was not until 1934 that movie musicals swept to breathtaking new heights, thanks to Busby Berkeley, Fred and Ginger among others; and it followed logically that the Academy began honoring film music.Depression-era Hollywood with its ruthless moguls and their bulging checkbooks shamelessly raided Broadway for talent, and the best answered the call: Kern, Berlin, Rodgers, Porter, Gershwin, Arlen, Mercer were all working in film by the mid-thirties, and the songs are among the best ever. Among the Academy Award winners detailed in this Lecture-in-Song: “The Continental,” “Lullaby of Broadway,” “The Way You Look Tonight,” “Thanks For The Memory,” “Over The Rainbow,”and that's only the 1930s. The quality of film music and songs originating in movies continued generally at a high level until the tidal wave of teenage “top 40” culture washed it away forever in the 1960s. “When Oscar Was King” reflects the era when popular songs were the crown jewels of our American life, and happily those perfect words & melodies are still with us.

Fred Miller is the founder of the Copper Penny Players, a singing class for amateurs that has been operating for the past quarter century. He has experience in many different musical fields, including opera, comedy and piano music. There are now more than seventy Lecture-in-Song programs that he performs around New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

The Senior Happening is a monthly series that allows attendees (“Seniors” or otherwise) to socialize during the first part of the program (12 until 12:45 pm) by bringing a bag lunch, while enjoying desserts and coffee served by the Friends of the Library volunteers. The program and entertainment then begins at 1 pm.

Registration is required and may be done in person at the library; by telephone at (973) 992-4600; or online at www.livingstonlibrary.org. Registration begins on March 3rd  for Livingston residents and other Essex County residents.

Unable to make the show? A pre-recorded video of the performance will be available on the library website, www.livingstonlibrary.org, for you to enjoy at your leisure. 

Senior Happening is made possible in part by funds from the Essex County Division of Cultural Affairs, a partner of the New Jersey State Council on the Arts and through the support from the Friends of the Livingston Library.