NoMad Jazz Festival and Tin Pan Alley American Popular Music Project Celebrate Make Music New York Festival Weekend with “Music on Tin Pan Alley, Birthplace of American Popular Music”
Join vocalist Ilana Meredith and pianist Joseph Rutkowski for an immersive afternoon where music and history come alive. Joined by renowned local historian Jim Mackin, the trio presents a curated selection of songs from the golden age of Tin Pan Alley.
Through a seamless blend of live performance and rich storytelling, audiences will step back in time to late 19 th and early 20th-Century New York, when sheet music publishers, songwriters and performers filled “Tin Pan Alley” (West 28th Street between Broadway and 6 th Avenue) pounding out melodies in bustling studios, each hoping to transform a simple tune into a timeless hit, eventually creating ”The Great American Songbook.”
Ilana Meredith is a graduate of N.Y.U., Tisch School of the Arts' B.F.A. Drama program. She has performed on tours, at several regional theatres and summer stock companies. She received her Master’s Degree in Theatre Education from City College of N.Y. and currently teaches drama and directs the mainstage shows at Great Neck South High School. When not teaching, Ilana continues to study acting in NYC and abroad. Since 2018, she has worked with Joe Rutkowski singing at venues in the Hudson Valley, Long Island, and NYC areas. To learn more about her work, please visit www.Ilana-Meredith.com, and her theatre program’s website at www.gntheatresouth.com.
Joe Rutkowski has entertained audiences in the tri-state area for over 50 years. Performing his first gig on accordion at the age of 10, he has expanded his repertoire of styles to include classical Mozart and Beethoven to jazz classics, and from Polish and Ukrainian dances to bebop jazz and Jewish klezmer. As a combo player and soloist, Joseph Rutkowski is a 48-year honorary member of Local 802 (American Federation of Musicians). He has performed dozens of jazz programs with his two sons, Ben and Daniel. As a young musician, he performed hundreds of club dates with his brother Andrew and their father, Joe, Sr. This pattern of a father and two sons goes back 5 generations in Joe’s family to the 1880s in Poland.
Jim Mackin is a well-known historian and the author of Notable New Yorkers of Manhattan’s Upper West Side: Bloomingdale – Morningside Heights. He lectures frequently and conducts historical tours for organizations such as the New York Historical Society. As former president of the Friends of Taconic State Park, Jim played a pivotal role in establishing the Copake Iron Works railroad, which opened to the public in 2023. Currently, he serves as co-director of the Bloomingdale Neighborhood History Group on Manhattan’s Upper West Side and is working on a book about Harlem. Playing guitar and singing sparked his love of popular music and led to his interest in its rich and captivating history.
The Tin Pan Alley American Popular Music Project (www.tinpanalley.nyc) commemorates and continues the legacy of Tin Pan Alley, the culturally rich and diverse birthplace of American Popular Music on 28th Street between Broadway and 6th Avenue in New York City. The Tin Pan Alley Project is a nonprofit organization that fosters appreciation for the historic beginning of American Popular Music and the modern music business. Through telling the stories of the songwriters, music publishers and performers -- many of whom were Eastern European Jewish immigrants and Black Americans -- that formed the sound and industry of American Popular Music in the first half of the 20th Century, we connect people with the power of music as an essential element of New York City and American cultural history.
View the full program for the 20th Anniversary Make Music Day in New York here!
