This concert is an electrifying tribute to Gershwin, bringing together the most famous pieces by a self-taught genius who brought jazz to the symphonic stage.

Images and stories abound about Gershwin, a true American legend: the street urchin who conquered Broadway with his brother Ira, the natural songwriter with prodigious inventiveness, the insatiable pianist and musician, always seeking progress and forcing open the doors of the learned world. An instinctive science shines through in the irresistible folk inspiration of Rhapsody in Blue, or in the colourful vignettes, sometimes joyful, sometimes brilliant and languid, of An American in Paris. Gershwin's ultimate score and masterpiece, Porgy and Bess appears as a seductive orchestral suite, escorted by a bouquet of overtures from Broadway Musicals designed by the George-Ira tandem: Strike up the band, an astonishing parody of American warmongering, and Girl Crazy, a fantasy about the "cowboy" world featuring several "standards", including the famous I Got Rhythm.