Noah Griffin Email & Phone Number

Noah Griffin is a Founder/Artistic Director at The Cole Porter Society based in San Francisco Bay Area, United States, North America. . My father, born before the turn of the last century once mused: in his day a well written Broadway ballad or Tin Pan Alley tune would stay popular for a year. You'd hear them only in vaudeville houses, on nickelodeons or at sing-along's to sheet music gatherings around the parlor piano. They wouldn't be worn out in constant radio rotation, let alone massive MTV exposure, or through instant iPod access. In the 50's, musical tastes expanded yet you could still hear a wide range of songs. Think Elvis, Sinatra or Ferrante and Teicher, on the same top 40 chart. What happened? Musical tastes shifted; which is to be expected. But instead of assimilating what went before as the foundation for who we are now, it is as if there was nothing before now. Two of my children had private primary school educations. They were the only ones in their classes familiar with Broadway musicals and who wrote them. Our children, our nation, our heritage deserves better. Cole Porter represents the height of the foundational generation who built the platform on which we stand. Failing to have a basic understanding of who he was and what he contributed to our cultural and musical landscape leaves us all the poorer indeed. When my older children, now in their 30's, were growing up I made them listen to Frank Sinatra on Saturday nights. I told them 20 years from now you're not going to be able to say: "Sweetheart, their playing our rap." They could...but it would be terribly limiting. The Cole Porter Society will be taking his music into schools and universities, working with the music departments to expand their student's knowledgeable breadth so that his role in our musical history will not be lost. So they, too, can have a lyrical vocabulary beyond: "Baby, Baby, I've Got The Feelin'" The Cole Porter Society was formed to ensure the musical literacy and cultural heritage of one of America's foremost composers and lyricists is passed on to this and to future generations.