# Great American Songbook Foundation

The Great American Songbook Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to the preservation and promotion of the music of the Great American Songbook. The Songbook Foundation's administrative offices and Songbook Exhibit Gallery are located on the Gallery level of The Palladium at Allied Solutions Center for Performing Arts, a 1,600-seat concert hall in Carmel, Indiana, that opened in January 2011. The Songbook Library & Archives are housed offsite nearby.
Previously known as the Feinstein Foundation for the Education and Preservation of the Great American Songbook and as the Michael Feinstein Great American Songbook Initiative, the organization took its current name in 2014.
The Songbook Foundation's mission is "to inspire and educate by celebrating the music of the Great American Songbook."

## History and operation

Michael Feinstein founded the organization in 2007. Upon Feinstein's appointment as artistic director of Allied Solutions Center for the Performing Arts in 2009, the organization made a commitment to move its headquarters and archives on the Center's campus in Carmel, Indiana.
The Great American Songbook Foundation's administrative headquarters houses a reference library, study and listening rooms for researchers, archival storage space, and the Songbook Exhibit Gallery, an exhibit space featuring rotating interactive presentations about the music, its creators and the performers of the Great American Songbook.
In 2023, the Songbook Foundation announced its agreement with the City of Carmel to open a stand-alone music museum.

## Education and outreach
### 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), "Blast from the Past: Roaring Hot '20s Jazz" (2013), "A Change Is Gonna Come: 1960s Broadway Musicals" (2014), "Gus Kahn: The Man Behind the Music" (2015), "The Great Indiana Songbook: Two Centuries of Hoosier Music" (2016), "Ella Sings the Songbook" (2017), "The Unsinkable Meredith Willson" (2018), "The Andrews Sisters: Queens of the Jukebox" (2019) "Of Thee I Sing: Politics on Stage" (2019-2021). The current display, "From the Jazz Age to Streaming: The Soundtrack of the 20s-20s," was first installed in 2021. Additionally, the Songbook Foundation lends traveling exhibits and provides adapted online exhibits and Songbook Library & Archives collections highlights.
These exhibits focus on different time periods, styles, and artists. 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.

### The Songbook Academy Summer Intensive Program

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. 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. The program changed in 2015 to accommodate 40 students in a single location at Allied Solutions Center for the Performing Arts. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the program temporarily transitioned to an online format in 2020, eliminating its competitive element. Since resuming in-person programming in 2022, the summer intensive has maintained a non-competitive focus on education.
In June 2016, Maddie Baillio was cast as Tracy Turnblad in NBC's production of Hairspray Live!
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. 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.
Great American Songbook Youth Ambassadors (2009-2019) :
| Winner | Hometown | Year |
| Julia Bonnett | Carmel, Indiana | 2009 |
| Annie Yokom | Naperville, Illinois | 2010 |
| event on hiatus | | 2011 |
| Nick Ziobro | Manlius, New York | 2012 |
| Julia Goodwin | Baldwinsville, New York | 2013 |
| Maddie Baillio | League City, Texas | 2014 |
| Lucas DeBard | Lebanon, Indiana | 2015 |
| Brighton Thomas | Burbank, California | 2016 |
| Finn Sagal | La Cañada Flintridge, California | 2017 |
| Lily Rasmussen | Lexington, Kentucky | 2018 |
| Sadie Fridley | Syracuse, New York | 2019 |

### 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. 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."
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. 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.
Songbook Hall of Fame Honorees :
| Artist(s) | Years Active | Award | Year | Area of Achievement |
| Barry Manilow | 1964–present | New Standard Award | 2012 | Creator of ten chart-topping singles and five best-selling albums in the 1970s, while simultaneously producing albums for Bette Midler, Nancy Wilson (jazz singer), and Dionne Warwick. |
| Cole Porter | 1920s–1958 | Legend Award | 2012 | Composer and lyricist of several successful Broadway shows and films, such as Paris (1928) and Kiss Me, Kate (1948) |
| Rita Moreno | 1943–present | New Standard Award | 2013 | |
| Liza Minnelli | 1949–present | New Standard Award | 2013 | |
| Jimmy Webb | 1965–present | Songbook Award | 2013 | |
| Frank Sinatra | 1935–1995 | Legend Award | 2013 | |
| Alan and Marilyn Bergman | 1950s–2017 | Songbook Award | 2014 | Longstanding career of more than 50 years. Recipients of sixteen Academy Awards, two Grammy Awards, three Emmy Awards, and one Ace Award. |
| Johnny Mathis | 1956–present | Songbook Award | 2014 | |
| Shirley Jones | 1950–present | New Standard Award | 2014 | |
| Linda Ronstadt | 1965–2011 | New Standard Award | 2014 | |
| Nat King Cole | 1934–1965 | Legend Award | 2014 | |
| Steve Lawrence & Eydie Gormé | 1950–2019 | New Standard Award | 2015 | |
| Chita Rivera | 1950–2024 | New Standard Award | 2015 | |
| George Gershwin & Ira Gershwin | 1910s–1950s | Legend Award | 2015 | |
| Diahann Carroll | 1950–2016 | New Standard Award | 2016 | |
| Dionne Warwick | 1955–present | New Standard Award | 2016 | |
| Hoagy Carmichael | 1918–1981 | Legend Award | 2016 | |
| Ray Gilbert | 1940s–1960s | Legend Award | 2017 | |
| Mitzi Gaynor | 1944–2021 | New Standard Award | 2017 | |
| Ella Fitzgerald | 1934–1993 | Legend Award | 2017 | |
| Marilyn Maye | 1946–present | New Standard Award | 2018 | |
| Jimmy Van Heusen | 1930s–1970s | Legend Award | 2018 | |
| Rosemary Clooney | 1946–2002 | Legend Award | 2018 | |
| Paul Williams | 1964–present | Songbook Award | 2019 | |
| Duke Ellington | 1914–1974 | Legend Award | 2019 | |
| Doris Day | 1939–2012 | Legend Award | 2019 | |
| Tony Bennett | 1936–2021 | New Standard Award | 2019 | |
| Meredith Willson | 1921−1982 | Songbook Award | 2020 | |
| Peggy Lee | 1936–2000 | Songbook Award | 2020 | |
| Billy Strayhorn | 1934–1964 | Legend Award | 2021 | |
| Melissa Manchester | 1971–present | New Standard Award | 2021 | |
| Sammy Cahn | 1935–1982 | Legend Award | 2021 | |
| Straight No Chaser | 1996–2000 2008–present | New Standard Award | 2022 | |
| The Manhattan Transfer | 1969–2023 | New Standard Award | 2022 | |
| The Lennon Sisters | 1955–present | New Standard Award | 2022 | |
| Judy Garland | 1924–1969 | Legend Award | 2023 | |

### 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. 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,. and has since evolved to independently offer monthly resources online. 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.

### 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.

## Archives, library, and preservation

The Songbook Library & Archives serves as a repository for the papers of significant Songbook figures including Meredith Willson, Hy Zaret, and Gus Kahn, as well as special collections covering such artists as The Andrews Sisters in the following formats: sheet music, photos, scrapbooks, posters, music magazines, books, LPs, 45s, lacquer disc, personal papers, theatre playbills, film, video, analog tape, and recordings. Many of these items are currently approaching one hundred years of age.
The Songbook Foundation's non-circulating research library houses a wide variety of reference materials. In addition, students, teachers and researchers from around the world visit the Songbook Foundation's website to view and research selections from the Archives, which contains over one hundred collections, 35,000 pieces of sheet music, and 3,000 reference books.
Several tiems housed in the Songbook Foundation's Archives include:
   * 7,000 audio recordings in thirteen different formats, including Rudy Vallée's radio transcription discs dating from 1932;
   * Meredith Willson's personal papers, scripts, and recordings, including The Music Man and The Unsinkable Molly Brown;
   * Musical orchestrations from Bob and Dolores Hope's decades of live performances across the globe;
   * Pianos owned by Songbook composers Richard A. Whiting, Harold Arlen, Johnny Mercer, and Irving Berlin;
   * Hy Zaret's original lyrics for "Unchained Melody", one of the twentieth century's most frequently recorded songs.