When he was 15 years old, Michael Feinstein heard George Gershwin’s ‘Rhapsody in Blue’ for the first time. He called it a transcendent experience. A connection. A sense of finding something to which he belonged that was unique in his life to that point.
He started collecting every Gershwin record he could get his hands on. He became obsessed with Gershwin.
The coincidences that followed and his storybook encounter with American show music icon, and George’s brother, Ira Gershwin are too numerous to ignore.
Michael was born on Sep 7, 1956, in Columbus, Ohio. His parents remember hearing him humming songs at a very young age. When he was five, his dad bought a piano from Grave’s Piano Store on Broad St. Michael began playing immediately. He could play songs just by ear. After two months of piano lessons, his instructor finally came to that conclusion as well. Michael stopped taking piano lessons at that point.
While his friends were dancing to rock-n-roll, Michael was collecting old 78 rpm records from the Great American Song Book which is music made in the twentieth century but has transcended time. Older melodies were simply more appealing to Michael. Music from the 1920s through the 1940s.
Michael played piano for many central Ohio weddings and bar mitzvahs in the early 1970s. He graduated from Eastmoor High School in 1974, and his family moved to California in the fall of 1976.
Then the dominoes of life began to fall into place.
Michael had a collection of Oscar Levant recordings, a great 1940s pianist who played a lot of Gershwin’s music. One day while in a used record store, he came across and purchased a stack of rare Levant recordings for $200. Levant played a lot of Gershwin compositions. Feinstein says he had a strange connection with Levant who became the conduit to Ira Gershwin.
At this point, Michael worked selling pianos by day and singing at piano bars at night. Then a co-worker told him he should call June Levant, Oscar’s widow, about the rare recordings he had just purchased. She handed him her phone number.
Michael, astounded at this incredible opportunity, dialed her up. He met with June, played some of her late husband’s music on the piano and helped her catalogue his record collection. The recordings Michael had were mistakenly sold at the Levant estate auction by Sotheby’s.
They became good friends. June soon began taking Michael to Beverly Hills parties. At these small gatherings, he was usually asked to play a little piano. He played Gershwin. And others. He soon got gigs and connections.
June was friends with Leonore Gershwin, Ira’s wife. Ira was 80 and confined to his home. George Gershwin, his brother, had died back in 1937. Ira and George were legendary partners in music. George composed the melodies, and Ira wrote the lyrics.
One day, June gave Michael the phone number of Lee Gershwin and told him she was expecting his call.
On July 18, 1977, Michael met Lee and Ira Gershwin. He, of course, impressed Ira with his knowledge of the Gershwin legacy. He played a few rare Gershwin songs on their piano. They connected. Towards the end of the visit, Lee took him to a secret closet to show him a roomful of Gershwin recordings. He could not believe what was happening. She said Ira wanted them catalogued. He was hired.
For the next six years, Michael spent his afternoons at the Gershwins’ home cataloguing, but mostly entertaining Ira Gershwin on the piano and letting him reminisce, as he so wanted to do, about the past and his beloved brother. Michael calls this “the most electric and exciting time of his life.”
Ira died on August 17, 1983. He was 86.
Michael had a falling out with Lee but soon reconciled and help her with artistic matters about their business until her death in 1991.
Then, at age 29, Micheal Feinstein became a full time performer. Good friend Liza Minelli threw an opening night party before one of his first gigs complete with ‘A’ listers like Elizabeth Taylor, Joan Collins and Henry Mancini.
Feinstein played ‘Rhapsody in Blue’ in 1987 at the Hollywood Bowl commemorating the 50th anniversary of the death of George Gershwin. He has received five Grammy Award nominations, played in concert halls all over the world including Carnegie Hall, the Sydney Opera House, the White House and Buckingham Palace.
Feinstein returned to Columbus multiple times. On Oct 12, 1995, Michael appeared at An Open Book (749 N High St) on his first book tour.
Feinstein performed with BalletMet in his first ever collaboration with a dance company at the Ohio Theater on Jan 7, 2001.
Michael performed at the Picnic with the Pops at Chemical Abstracts lawn on Sat, July 8, 2006. He paid homage to the Gershwins, Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, and Jule Styne.
He has written two books ‘Nice work if you can get it: my life in Rhythm and Rhyme’ (1995) and ‘The Gershwins and me: a personal history in twelve songs’ (2012).
He has recorded eighty six albums. His latest, Gershwin Country, was released in March 2022 and has Michael working with country stars like Dolly Parton, Alison Krauss, Brad Paisley, Rosanne Cash and more.
In 2007, Feinstein founded the Great American Songbook Foundation in Carmel, Indiana, dedicated to celebrating the art form and preserving it through educational programs. Michael serves as Artistic Director of the Center for Performing Arts, a three theater venue at the GASF while also tutoring young artists on the classics at the Songbook Academy.
He still has business in both NYC and LA, much like the Gershwins a generation before. And he still sees George and Ira’s ghosts in both places.
Sources: Nice work if you can get it, my life in rhythm & rhyme by Michael Feinstein, 1995; The Gershwins & me, a personal history in twelve songs by Michael Feinstein, 2012; Stonewall Awards dinner program, 1995; Outlook Magazine, Jan 4, 2001; Outlook Magazine, June 29, 2006; TEDx Talk – YouTube – Dec 9, 2024 – What the Great American Songbook teaches us about democracy; ‘Meet our Founder: Michael Feinstein, The Great American Songbook Foundation, thesongbook.org; michaelfeinstein.com; Michael Feinstein interview, CBS Sunday Morning, July 27, 2025; Both featured photos courtesy www.michaelfeinstein.com.