Michael Feinstein

Michael Jay Feinstein (born September 7, 1956) is an American singer, pianist and music revivalist.

He is an archivist and interpreter for the repertoire known as the Great American Songbook.

Through the widow of concert pianist-actor Oscar Levant, he was introduced in 1977 to Ira Gershwin, who hired him to catalogue his extensive collection of phonograph records.

The assignment led to six years of researching, cataloguing and preserving the unpublished sheet music and rare recordings in Gershwin's home, Ira's works but also those of his composer brother George Gershwin.

During Feinstein's years with Gershwin, he also got to know Gershwin's next-door neighbor, singer Rosemary Clooney, with whom Feinstein formed a friendship lasting until Clooney's death.

By the mid-1980s, Feinstein was a nationally known cabaret singer-pianist famed for being a proponent of the Great American Songbook.

Feinstein served as musical consultant for the 1983 Broadway show My One and Only, a musical pastiche of Gershwin tunes.

In 1986, he recorded his first CD, Pure Gershwin (1987), a collection of music by George and Ira Gershwin.

He followed this with Live at the Algonquin (1986); Remember: Michael Feinstein Sings Irving Berlin (1987); Isn't It Romantic (1988), a collection of standards and his first album backed by an orchestra; and Over There (1989), featuring the music of America and Europe during the First World War.

In the 1987 episode "But Not for Me" of the TV series thirtysomething, he sang "But Not for Me", "Love Is Here to Stay" and Isn't It Romantic?.

In 1988 he won a Drama Desk Special Award for celebrating American musical theatre songs.

Feinstein is also a multi-platinum-selling, five-time Grammy-nominated recording artist.

He is the artistic director for The Center for the Performing Arts in Carmel, Indiana.

Feinstein was born in Columbus, Ohio, the son of Florence Mazie (née Cohen), an amateur tap dancer, and Edward Feinstein, a sales executive for the Sara Lee Corporation and a former amateur singer.

He is Jewish.

At the age of 5, he studied piano for a couple of months until his teacher became angered that he was not reading the sheet music she gave him, since he was more comfortable playing by ear.

As his mother saw no problem with her son's method, she took him out of lessons and allowed him to enjoy music his own way.

After graduating from high school, Feinstein worked in local piano bars for two years, moving to Los Angeles when he was age 20.

By 1988, Feinstein was starring on Broadway in a series of in-concert shows: Michael Feinstein in Concert (April through June 1988), Michael Feinstein in Concert: "Isn't It Romantic" (October through November 1988), and Michael Feinstein in Concert: Piano and Voice (October 1990).

In the early 1990s, Feinstein embarked on a songbook project where he performed an album featuring the music of a featured composer, often accompanied by the composer.

These included collaborations with Burton Lane (two volumes: 1990, 1992), Jule Styne (1991), Jerry Herman (Michael Feinstein Sings the Jerry Herman Songbook, 1993), Hugh Martin (1995), Jimmy Webb (Only One Life: The Songs of Jimmy Webb, 2003) and Jay Livingston/Ray Evans (2002).

In the late 1990s, Feinstein recorded two more albums of Gershwin music: Nice Work If You Can Get It: Songs by the Gershwins (1996) and Michael & George: Feinstein Sings Gershwin (1998).

1991 saw Feinstein's persona as a cabaret performer parodied in the third season of Mystery Science Theater 3000, which covered the Kaiju movie Gamera vs. Guiron.

At the episode's close, Feinstein, played by the show's head writer Michael J. Nelson, and sang a cabaret version of the Gamera theme song to the characters Dr. Clayton Forrester and TV's Frank.

Feinstein recorded Pure Imagination, his only children's album, in 1992.

He has also recorded three albums of standards with Maynard Ferguson: Forever (1993), Such Sweet Sorrow (1995), and Big City Rhythms (1999).

Feinstein's albums in the 21st century have included Romance on Film, Romance on Broadway (2000), Michael Feinstein with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra (2001), Hopeless Romantics (2005, featuring George Shearing), and The Sinatra Project (2008).

In 2000, the Library of Congress appointed Feinstein to the National Recording Preservation Board, an organization dedicated to safeguarding America's musical heritage.

In 2008, The Great American Songbook Foundation, founded by Feinstein, located its headquarters in Carmel, Indiana.

The foundation's mission includes the preservation, research, and exhibition of the physical artifacts, both published and non-published, of the Great American Songbook and educating today's youth about the music's relevance to their lives.

The foundation houses an archive and reference library; plans exist for a free-standing museum.

The organization also holds an annual Great American Songbook Vocal Academy and Competition that invites high school students to compete in regional competitions; Feinstein has been a judge and mentor for the summer intensive each year from its inception in 2009.

Finalists gather at the foundation's headquarters for a vocal "boot camp" and final competition.

The winner receives scholarship money and the opportunity to perform with Michael at his cabaret in New York.

In 2009, Feinstein became the artistic director of The Center for the Performing Arts.

located in Carmel, Indiana.

In 2009, Feinstein teamed with Cheyenne Jackson to create a nightclub act titled "The Power of Two".

He returned to Broadway in 2010, in a concert special duo with Dame Edna titled All About Me (March through April 2010).

Construction of the $170-million, three-theater venue was completed in January 2011.

The center is home to an annual international arts festival, diverse live programming, and The Great American Songbook Foundation.