Ronald E. Bornstein
Vernon Duke, A Composer for All Seasons
Summary
April in Paris? Autumn in New York? Taking a Chance on Love? They are some of the hits composed by Vernon Duke that made their way into the Great American Songbook. Lyricists for his songs were among the very best, including Ira Gershwin, E. Y. Harburg, Howard Dietz, Ogden Nash and Sammy Cahn.
Vernon Duke was the “nom de plume” of Vladimir Dukelsky, born in the Russian Empire in 1903, and composition student at the Kiev Academy from the age of 11. He and his family arrived in New York in 1921 where he soon met George Gershwin who urged him to write popular music under a new name. He followed this advice while continuing to write classical compositions under his birth name. They included, among others, a work commissioned by Serge Diaghilev for the Ballets Russes, orchestral and chamber music for the conductor Serge Koussevizky, choral music, and a cello concerto for Gregor Piatigorsky.
You are cordially invited to join Ron Bornstein in the metaphorical Lockdown University Recital Hall as he discusses the lives and works of Vernon Duke/ Vladimir Dukelsky.
Ronald E. Bornstein
Ronald E. Bornstein is an international lawyer who has practiced in New York, Paris, San Francisco, and London. He is a member of Chatham House, the Royal Institute of International Affairs, and a Lifetime Member of the Pacific Pension & Investment Institute (PPI). He was a Ford Foundation Fellow at the Academy of International Law at The Hague and a visiting Fulbright Professor at the University of Dakar. Ron grew up in Manhattan and is a lifelong student of the “Great American Songbook” and American music from 1920 to 1970.
Watch video of Ronald E. Bornstein in Conversation with Barry Kester, author of Round in Circles, the Story of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Carousel, at Jewish Book Week, London 2025: JewishLiteraryFoundation.co.uk