Great American Songbook Foundation

Songbook Exhibit Gallery

The Songbook Exhibit Gallery features rotating exhibits. These exhibits helps guests to place the music of this era in context with the events that occurred in the 20th-century United States. The Songbook Foundation offers corresponding educational programs and guided tours for school groups, civic and professional organizations, and members of the general public.

Since 2011, the Songbook Foundation has presented the following exhibits: "G.I. Jive: The Music and Entertainers of World War II" (2011), "The Great American Songbook" (2012),^[6] "Blast from the Past: Roaring Hot '20s Jazz" (2013),^[7] "A Change Is Gonna Come: 1960s Broadway Musicals" (2014),^[8] "Gus Kahn: The Man Behind the Music" (2015),^[9] "The Great Indiana Songbook: Two Centuries of Hoosier Music" (2016),^[10] "Ella Sings the Songbook" (2017),^[11] "The Unsinkable Meredith Willson" (2018), "The Andrews Sisters: Queens of the Jukebox" (2019)^[12] "Of Thee I Sing: Politics on Stage" (2019–2021).^[13] The current display, "From the Jazz Age to Streaming: The Soundtrack of the 20s-20s," was first installed in 2021.^[14] Additionally, the Songbook Foundation lends traveling exhibits and provides adapted online exhibits and Songbook Library & Archives collections highlights.^[15]

These exhibits focus on different time periods, styles, and artists.^[16] In addition to the interactive display which houses clips and short biographies of several decades of singers and songwriters, each exhibit displays artifacts from the Songbook Library & Archives that relate to the music and musicians being highlighted in the Songbook Gallery exhibits.^[17]

The Songbook Academy

The Songbook Academy is an educational summer music intensive held by the Great American Songbook Foundation. Formerly known as the High School Vocal Academy and Competition, the program originated in 2009 and trains cohorts of up to 40 high school vocalists annually.^[18] The Songbook Foundation states on its website, "At the Songbook Academy, we believe that every young singer has a unique story to tell through music."

The Songbook Academy has undergone significant evolution since its founding. During its inception, the program invited high school students to compete in regional competitions to culminate in a final competition at the Songbook Foundation's headquarters.^[19] The program changed in 2015 to accommodate 40 students in a single location at Allied Solutions Center for the Performing Arts.^[20] In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the program temporarily transitioned to an online format in 2020, eliminating its competitive element.^[21] The summer intensive has maintained a non-competitive focus on education since resuming in-person programming in 2022.^[22]

Winners of the earlier competition format were commemorated as Great American Songbook Youth Ambassadors. Each Youth Ambassador won a $3,000 scholarship and a trip to New York City to perform alongside Michael Feinstein.^[19] Today, the Songbook Foundation celebrates the professional growth of each student by providing alumni avenues to share achievements and coordinating additional networking and performance opportunities.

Songbook Hall of Fame

The Great American Songbook Hall of Fame is a tribute to people who have contributed to the genre, memorializing composers, performers, and lyricists who have added to the history of the Songbook.^[36] Artists are nominated and selected based on the following criteria:

• Legend Award: Artists who made a significant contribution to the Golden Age of American popular music, typically defined as the period from the early years of the Twentieth century through the 1960s;
• Songbook Award: Living songwriters, both lyricists and composers, who have made a significant impact on American pop culture by creating the most beloved songs from the American popular songbook; and
• New Standard Award: Artists, songwriters and/or performers who continues to create the soundtrack of our lives by writing and/or performing music that will become the pop standards of tomorrow."^[37][38]

In the past, the Songbook Foundation and Allied Solutions Center for the Performing Arts hosted live performances in celebration of the lives and careers of the artists selected for induction into the Great American Songbook Hall of Fame. Nominees, or their representatives, were invited to Carmel and honored with tribute performances celebrating their achievements.^[39][40] In recent years, the Songbook Hall of Fame has evolved into an online educational resource for fans around the world with programming to celebrate inductees hosted virtually and in-person year round.^[41]

GRAMMY Museum Cultural Affiliation

In July 2017, the Los Angeles-based Grammy Museum announced that the Great American Songbook Foundation has been designated as a Cultural Affiliate, joining four other institutions worldwide: the Bob Marley Museum in Kingston, Jamaica; the Woody Guthrie Center in Tulsa, OH; The Beatles Story in Liverpool, UK; and the National Blues Museum in St. Louis, MO.^[77] The relationships allows for collaboration between the organizations on exhibits and educational and research programs, among other amenities.

Perfect Harmony Music Program

Founded in 2015, the Songbook Foundation's Perfect Harmony program offers music activities to people with Alzheimer's, dementia and other neurodegenerative diseases. This program was initially launched in collaboration with the Greater Indiana Chapter of the Alzheimer's Association.^[78] and has since evolved to independently offer monthly resources online.^[79] Each Perfect Harmony resource is designed for participants and caregivers to become involved in social singing, discussions, and low-impact movement exercises to a thematic selection of popular music. As a group, people share experiences related to memorable songs and the monthly theme.^[80]

Songbook Film Series

The Great American Songbook Foundation partnered with Indianapolis-based Heartland International Film Festival to present classic movie musicals to the public, cultivating a new generation of movie lovers. Some screenings included guest speakers, who enlightened audiences on the nature and creation of the movies shown.^[81]